Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts [1 ed.] 9783954896127, 9783954891122

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Tony McCracken

Apathy in Literature

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A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts, Diplomica Verlag, 2013.

McCracken, Tony: Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts. Hamburg, Anchor Academic Publishing 2014 Buch-ISBN: 978-3-95489-112-2 PDF-eBook-ISBN: 978-3-95489-612-7 Druck/Herstellung: Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg, 2014 Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar. Bibliographical Information of the German National Library: The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography. Detailed bibliographic data can be found at: http://dnb.d-nb.de

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................ 7 1.2 What is apathy? .............................................................................................. 9 2. Apathy as a character trait ............................................................................. 11 3. Unawareness of emotions -The Stranger ........................................................ 14 3.1 First indications for apathy .......................................................................... 15 3.2 Apathy and moral guilt ................................................................................ 16 3.3 Reliability..................................................................................................... 19 3.4 Apathy as Meursault’s tragic flaw ............................................................... 20 4. Controlling/repressing emotions - Hamlet ..................................................... 24 4.1 Emotion and ratio......................................................................................... 25 4.2 Examples of repressed emotions: Hamlet in interaction with other characters ........................................................................................................... 27 4.3 Soliloquies and motivation .......................................................................... 29 4.4 Apathy as Hamlet’s flaw.............................................................................. 31 5. Striving to feel - Fight Club ............................................................................. 35 5.1 Disrupting the state of apathy ...................................................................... 36 5.2 Who is Tyler Durden?.................................................................................. 37 5.3 From copy to original – From apathy to emotion ........................................ 39 6. Emotion in relation to only one particular feature - Perfume ..................... 42 6.1 Apathy, smell and existence ........................................................................ 43 6.2 Grenouille’s apathy and further analysis of the character’s motivation ...... 45 6.3 Crime fiction from the view of the murderer ............................................... 47

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7. Apathy as social phenomenon - Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? ... 50 7.1 The different social groups: three levels of human emotion ....................... 51 7.2 Empathy and emotion for oneself ................................................................ 53 7.3 Creating apathy in society............................................................................ 54 7.4 Dystopias and utopias .................................................................................. 55 8. Apathy in the narration - Boyhood ................................................................. 58 9. Apathy in the setting – Endgame and Dubliners ........................................... 62 10. Intermediate conclusion ................................................................................ 66 10.1 The four types of apathetic characters ....................................................... 66 10.2 The two forms of apathy as external concept ............................................ 67 10.3 Apathy in the setting and narration ............................................................ 68 11. Comparison of further key differences ........................................................ 70 11.1 Assimilation to society............................................................................... 70 11.2 Religion ...................................................................................................... 70 11.3 Will to live and the downfall ..................................................................... 72

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

12. Criticism in the text (philosophy in literature) ........................................... 74 12.1 Existence precedes essence ........................................................................ 75 12.2 Concept of time .......................................................................................... 77 12.3 Concept of humanism ................................................................................ 79 12.4 Concept of freedom ................................................................................... 81 12.5 Ethical considerations ................................................................................ 82 13. Apathy in poems – Apathy and Enthusiasm ................................................. 85 14. The reader’s experience / .............................................................................. 89 Differences between play, prose and poem ........................................................ 89 15. Final conclusion.............................................................................................. 93

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16. References ....................................................................................................... 96

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

1. Introduction Apathy is the lack of any kind of emotion. As emotions are essential to the conception of the human being, many approaches to understand this phenomenon have been made. The fields of psychology and biology are only two of several sciences which try to explain this phenomenon of alexithymia. But whereas the core and origin of this human condition are still being analysed, literature has been using the theme of apathy in several different ways. How this theme is used and which different concepts of apathy exist, will be examined in this discourse. This discourse will concentrate on two major aspects of literature: the effect of apathy as a concept within the plot and the effect of this concept of apathy on the reader. The main part will focus on the development of the characters within the plot because apathy is primarily a human condition. Albert Camus, for example, presents a protagonist in his work The Stranger who is entirely unaware of his emotions. He does not express or perceive any feelings and thereby sees the world without emotions. Moreover, the relation between emotion and ratio of William Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet will be analysed showing that Hamlet is in control of his emotional state. This special concept of apathy, which sets in after the ghost appears, will be examined. The protagonist in Fight Club confronts the reader with a completely different concept of apathy as he

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strives to extinguish his own lack of emotion. Thereby, also the concept of apathy of life in Fight Club, which shows that apathy can go beyond a single character trait, will be examined. Furthermore, Grenouille, the protagonist of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume, is a highly complex character as he perceives the world with his sense of smell. He is an unemotional murderer on the surface, whose aim it is to create a perfume which makes everyone love him. He does not strive to feel himself, but strives for others to feel for him. The question will be how apathy works in combination with a character whose perception of the world is not compatible with the reader’s perception and which special concept of apathy is produced by

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this kind of character. These four characters will show the first form of apathy: the apathy as a character trait. Then the field of apathy within a single character will be left. Apathy can become an external concept, as it has been already shown by the concept of apathy of life presented in Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. In utopian fiction entire fictive societies without emotions or with controlled emotions such as in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? have been created. In these works apathy becomes a social phenomenon. Apathy of life and apathy as social phenomenon will then serve as examples for the next form of apathy: apathy as external concept. Furthermore, it will be of interest to analyse whether apathy is something which can only be found in the nature of a character or if it can also appear in the narrative, for which J. M. Coetzee’s Boyhood will serve as primary example, or even if we can call a setting unemotional, which will be described with the help of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and a short excursion to James Joyce’ Dubliners. After the analysis of apathy within the text, it will be concentrated on the criticism such literary works incorporate. The focus of this last part will therefore lie on the effect of apathy on the reader and viewer. Whether there is only one correct author’s intention to extract or the text functions as independent entity providing the reader with several different forms of criticism, will be discussed. The presented texts will moreover be examined with the help of five aspects of existentialism which Thomas R. Flynn

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points out. It will be explained, why literature which deals with the theme of apathy affects exactly these existentialistic aspects and moreover, what particular criticism can be extracted from the texts. Finally, not only the criticism/message, but the viewing experience will be brought into focus. What will be examined is if the lack of emotion has a different effect on the reader, if it appears in a prose text, a play or even a poem. Therefore, Herman Melville’s poem Apathy and Enthusiasm will be analysed in order to understand if and how apathy appears in a poem.

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1.2 What is apathy? Before examining the theme of apathy in literature, it is necessary to define what apathy is. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says that apathy is the “feeling of not being interested in or enthusiastic about anything” (p. 59, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English). Lacking enthusiasm means lacking emotion towards a certain object or situation. The recent Wikipedia – article about apathy calls it a “state of indifference,

or

the

suppression

of

emotions”

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apathy). In this book apathy will therefore be used synonym to the lack or suppression of emotions and furthermore, the state of being apathetic will be used synonym to being unemotional. This state is particularly what will be examined in this study. But as apathy is the lack of emotions, it becomes important to define what emotions are. Commonly, when speaking about emotions, one refers to human conditions as fear, love, anger, happiness and so on. These conditions can appear as a single, quick impression or a lasting mood. Moreover, there have been several philosophical debates about how to specify what exactly emotions are. E. M. Dadlez shows up several of these philosophical positions in What’s Hecuba to him? and brings up the key questions. It has been debated whether emotions are something happening to us or something which we actively do. It is therefore unclear if emotions should be regarded as “attributes or states or perception” (p.10, What’s Hecuba to him?) and furthermore, if emotions are something “cognitive or noncogniCopyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

tive” (p.10, What’s Hecuba to him?). What Dadlez can conclude at the end of the discourse is that emotions are “intentional and cognitive” (p.19, What’s Hecuba to him?) because we connect an emotion with a situation or object. Thus, there must be a relation between the emotional subject and the object triggering the emotion. It is explained that emotions are intentional states as they only appear when there is an object or a situation which stands in relation to the subject. It is the intention of our fear, for example, which appears when seeing a dangerous animal to stay away from it and prevent any danger. If there was no animal, there would be no fear and so emotions have a purpose. Furthermore, emotions are cognitive because the individual must have knowledge of the object or situation. 9

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

For example, a dangerous animal would not trigger fear if the subject would not have the knowledge that this particular animal can harm him. Taking this specification in account, apathy would be the human condition in which no situation or object triggers an emotion within the person - it would be the lack of human conditions as fear, love, anger, happiness and so on. This could either be the case if the person does not relate to objects or situations at all or these objects and situations have no value to him/her, so that no emotion can be triggered by these. Both of these concepts will appear in this discourse, but it will primarily be focused on the concept in which the origin of apathy lies within the character. Nonetheless, this definition and specification given by Dadlez only examines a real person’s emotion. It does not describe a fictive character’s emotion/apathy and does not describe if emotion can be an external concept beyond a single character trait. However, it is not necessary to have an exact definition of emotions or apathy as they appear in literature at this point of the discourse because firstly, when apathy is used in literature it does not necessarily have to be the same concept as the real phenomenon of alexithymia. And secondly, as it will be shown, every work has a slightly different use of emotions and their lacking. Nonetheless, Dadlez’ definition will serve as first impression of what emotions are and what we need to search for in literature, but the challenge will be to show up the similarities and differences of these concepts of emotion and

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apathy given in the particular works. Only thereby it will possible to analyse how literature uses and defines emotions and apathy.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

2. Apathy as a character trait The closest assumption when searching for the appearance of apathy is to locate it within a human as a condition. The analysis will therefore primarily focus on the concepts of apathy as a character trait. But in order to analyse what the effects of apathy as a character trait are, it will be necessary to describe the character’s significance in a literary work. In Literature, Criticism and Theory Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle quote Aristotle who says that the characters are only of secondary importance. Protagonist and other characters are formed only after the plot exists and only as the plot requires the characters to be. The plot is for him the “first essential” (p.60, Literature, Criticism and Theory). In contrast to this conception, Henry James says that both, plot and character, affect each other equally - “What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?” (p.60, Literature, Criticism and Theory) – Crucial about this statement is that a character cannot exist alone as a plot cannot take place without a character. Analysing a certain character’s lack of emotion simultaneously includes analysing the effects the character’s lack of emotion has on the plot. The character’s apathy is therefore never an isolated concept, which can be neglected when examining the plot of a story. Features as the tragic hero in relation to the tragedy and the honesty of a character in relation to his reliability as

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narrator of the plot will therefore be aspects which show this relation. Another aspect which is introduced by Bennett and Royle is that the character we identify with is the character whose “role we imaginatively inhabit” (p.67, Literature, Criticism and Theory). Identifying with a character is a method of letting us “create oneself as a character” (p.67, Literature, Criticism and Theory). Therefore, it is not only the way to enjoy a novel, making it more interesting as we become part of it but also the method of answering questions of our own existence. This is, as Bennett and Royle say, the reader’s question of “Who am I?” (p.66, Literature, Criticism and Theory).

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The question which must be asked in this context is if one can identify with a person who is unaware of his emotions and who is not necessarily suffering due to this condition of apathy, but who is simply relating to the world in a different way. Moreover, what does the piece of literature tell us about our own existence if this character is completely different to oneself? A possible answer can be given, when we look at antiheros as protagonists. As in Richard III the protagonist is a villain, who is not only ugly on the outside but also on the inside1. Richard is a character one would not want to identify with due to his evil deeds and intrigues. It is also easier for a reader to identify with a character if the divergence between his own nature and the character’s nature is smaller. Nonetheless, the reader identifies with the anti-hero to a certain extent, but simultaneously figures Richard to be someone who makes the morally wrong decisions and therefore someone the reader does not want to be. Antiheroes such as Richard function as a bad example or an ‘anti-role-model’. Albert Camus’ The Stranger, for instance, presents a protagonist (Meursault) who is not an antihero, but has a similar effect on the reader because he also takes the morally wrong actions. He is not a villain, but functions as an ‘anti-rolemodel’. Moreover, the protagonist’s lack of emotion makes it harder to identify with the character because the readers do not lack emotions in most cases. Even more than the antihero in Richard III, Meursault’s way of thinking and thereby his actions become hard to follow. Richard’s way of thinking is unclear at first because his aim is to manipulate (it is not the

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power itself which drives him as he is not content when he is the king), but Meursault’s way of thinking reaches a level of absurdity to the reader because he does not perceive his own emotions. For example, the reason for the murder that happens in the story is open to interpretation. Therefore, one might say that also the protagonist in The Stranger, is someone the reader sees as a character who he/she would never want to be because nobody wants to be as irrational and lack emotions. There is a great divergence between the reader’s and the character’s nature. Nevertheless, it is possible for the reader to identify with such a character as it is 1

„But I that am not shaped for sportive tricks Nor made to court an amorous lookingglass […] I am determined to prove a villain“, p.148-149, Richard III

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

possible to identify with an antihero. The question remains which effects the author intends to trigger by introducing such a character, who lacks emotions and with which it is hard to identify. This first analysis of apathy as a character trait has shown the two levels on which literature functions. On the one hand, a feature functions on the level of plot. It can influence the characters into taking certain actions, it can be an indication of certain events which are going to happen or it can set the text in a certain context and thereby in relation to other texts as for instance being a comedy or tragedy. The different concepts of apathy in the plot and effect these concepts have will therefore be examined in the following chapters. On the other hand, most of the texts can be read as criticism. As the reader asks himself/herself the question “Who am I?” (p.66, Literature, Criticism and Theory) when reading a text, a text presents either a criticism of the individual or a criticism of the entire society we live in. By identifying with a character, we inhabit this role and are open to the criticism. Which message is transmitted by implementing apathy in literary texts and furthermore, the reading/ viewing experience will be analysed in the end of this discourse. To begin with, the different conceptions of the lack of emotions as character trait and their effect on the plot will be examined. The Stranger will serve as first example as it presents one of the clearest illustrations of

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apathy as a character trait.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

3. Unawareness of emotions -The Stranger Albert Camus’ The Stranger uses the theme of apathy by introducing a protagonist who is absolutely unaware of his feelings. The first concept which will be focused on is therefore the ‘unawareness of emotions’. Camus’ protagonist provides the reader with one of the clearest presentations of a character lacking emotions. The first thing we learn about Monsieur Meursault, the protagonist and narrator of this story, is that he has lost his mother, over which he does not seem emotionally affected2. In the beginning of the story he goes to his mother’s funeral. Shortly after, he meets a girl named Marie, with whom he gets engaged. They go together on vacation with an ambiguous character named Raymond. One of Raymond’s friends, who the three are visiting, owns a bungalow near the beach. Meursault has assisted Raymond in parting with his girlfriend earlier by writing a letter for him. The intention of the letter was to lure the girlfriend to Raymond so he could beat her. This deed made Meursault and Raymond “pals” (p.29, The Stranger). At the beach, Meursault, Marie and Raymond are followed by a group of Arabs, one of whose sister was the girlfriend of Raymond who was beaten. After a previous incident at the beach Meursault returns to the beach with a gun to see if the Arabs are still there. He unwillingly shoots the brother of Raymond’s girlfriend because he is irritated by the sun, but then shoots another three times. The trial afterwards does not have a clear direction due to the fact that

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Meursault does not show any emotions and the court is irritated. The lawyer focuses on this apathy – especially on the fact that Meursault has not shed a tear at his mother’s funeral. Although this apathy shown in the trial is irrelevant to any evidence concerning the case, Meursault is finally condemned to death. In prison he becomes aware of many things. He thinks about life and death and the time everyone is given in between. Shortly after a priest has come to hear Meursaults confessions and the situation escalates because Meursault does not give a confession, the bells announcing Meursault’s execution sound. 2

Meursault’s attitude becomes clearer later in the story when he says: “At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead.”, p.65, The Stranger

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

3.1 First indications for apathy Already the first sentence of this story shows Meursault’s lack of emotion by his statement: “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know” (p.3, The Stranger). The indifference Meursault expresses towards the death of his own mother is therefore shown right from the beginning. As it will be shown, this is only one of many passages in which apathy is expressed by Meursault because being unaware of his emotions is one of his character traits. Moreover, in the end of the story, while being interviewed by a lawyer, Meursault says of himself that he has lost the ability to notice his own feelings. “I had pretty much lost the habit of analysing myself […] I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything” (p.65, The Stranger)3. The unawareness of emotions is a concept of apathy shown in The Stranger as Meursault is a character who does not notice his emotions. Therefore, the term ‘unaware’ is used. Being unaware of one’s emotions is here used synonym to lacking emotions because the protagonist does not perceive his own emotions and is therefore unemotional. The term ‘unaware’ suggests that there might be emotions left, but as there is no indication that this is the case, and the emotions stay unnoticed, unawareness is the same as a lack. Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Contradictive to Meursault’s description of being unemotional, Meursault says in a few passages that he enjoys washing his hands at lunchtime. But these sentences can be interpreted as mere expression of practicability. That he likes to wash his hands at lunchtime, is only rational because the towel is soaked wet in the evening4. That he likes Marie’s hair better when she wears it open is also rational as the decision what is considered 3

Avi Sagi quotes pages 68 and 69 from The Outsider (The Stranger’s earlier translation): “[…] in recent years I’d rather lost the habit of noting my feelings […]”, p. 74, Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger 4 “I washed my hands. I really like doing this at lunchtime. […] I don’t enjoy it so much in the evening, because the roller towel you use is soaked through: […]”, p.25, The Stranger

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as beautiful follows certain trends and is not necessarily subjective. Another moment in The Stranger where Meursault’s apathy can be questioned is when he talks about his mother’s death and then says: “you always feel a little guilty” (p.20, The Stranger). But Meursault does not talk about his own feelings. He talks about the convention that one feels guilty when sending a parent to the elderly home. Already at this point a differentiation must be made. The concept of an unemotional character in literature does not mean that a character does not prefer certain objects or situations over others. Would this be the case, then there would not be a plot because the character would not take any action at all as in going to certain places or interacting with certain people. Even an unemotional character must be able to have an own will or motivation, which is not necessarily based on emotional triggers, but can also be based on rational reasons. A free will and having emotions therefore do not contradict each other. Apathy describes the lack of feeling the joy, guilt and desire, not the lack of verbalising these emotions. When Meursault says that he enjoys something, this does not automatically mean that he feels joy, but that he prefers the situation or object over another, which is the origin of every action and every plot.

3.2 Apathy and moral guilt The death of Meursault’s mother is a key element in the story. Moreover, it is a key element in the trial, in which whether he is guilty seems to be

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defined by how he behaved at her funeral. Because he did not cry at her funeral, he appears to be a bad person to the court. He is even called Monsieur Antichrist by one of the inspectors, which not only shows Meursault’s opinion towards religion before he explicitly discusses this topic with the priest, but indicates that Meursault is seen as a morally bad person. To society one is only a good person, if one shows feelings openly and at the appropriate time. Behaving in the appropriate way is therefore what is demanded. It is therefore a common assumption to understand the unemotional as a morally bad person, because with the lack of emotion the lack of empathy and values is connected. Meursault does not show these expected emotions. He does not behave in the way it is expected 16

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

from him. The absence of feelings within Meursault also becomes clear at the point where he is asked by Marie whether he loves her and wants to marry her. He answers that he does not love her, but he wants to marry her nonetheless5. Whereas Meursault is therefore able to separate the world of his emotions and the world of actions, the society presented in The Stranger is not. Whereas he can live with someone he does not notice his emotions for, society cannot imagine someone to be good if this person does not show emotions. To Meursault one’s openly showed emotions have no influence on whether a character/person is good or bad. But to the people in the trial apathy becomes synonym with being a bad person. Another feature concerning Meursault’s moral guilt (whether he is a good or bad person) is that he does not pretend to have emotions in the courtroom although his lawyer demands it to win the trial. He even tells the court that he was blinded by the light instead of inventing a more plausible story, which would then contradict the truth6. When he is asked by his lawyer if he could say that he “held back” his “natural feelings” (p.65, The Stranger), Meursault refuses because it is not the truth. Furthermore, he does not show emotions towards Marie although he has the intention to marry her. He therefore never uses false emotion to his own advantage. This makes Meursault a very honest character. Camus writes in his own interpretation of The Stranger that Meursault “doesn’t play the game” and

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“refuses to lie” by saying “more than is true” (p.78, Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger). Showing emotions you do not feel would be “more than is true”. A protagonist is created who is unaware of his emotions and simultaneously very honest. Contrastive to this position, Conor Cruise O’Brien argues that Meursault does lie. O’Brien argues that the entire letter written for Raymond is a lie7 and Meursault testifies for Raymond at the police station. Both of these 5

“I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her.[…] if she wanted to, we could get married.”, p.41, The Stranger 6 “Fumbling a little with my words and realizing how ridiculous I sounded, I blurted out that it was because of the sun.”, p.103, The Stranger 7 “He concocts for Raymond the letter that is designed to deceive the Arab girl”, p.79, Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger

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actions show the morally dark side of Meursault’s character. But this position must be critically analysed. Whereas Meursault lies for Raymond, he never lies about himself. Despite the fact that his friend Raymond is a criminal and Meursault helps him by testifying, one could say Meursault only tries to help his friend and commit a good deed. One interpretation might be to say that Meursault cannot interpret the emotion of others due to the fact that he is unaware of his own emotions. He lacks the capability of feeling empathy. He cannot feel pity for Raymond’s girlfriend because he does not know when to feel pity. With regard to this incapability, Meursault does not become morally guilty when he writes the letter since he does not have the possibility to choose the morally right possibility. His lack of emotion becomes an incapability to choose the right action. Does not Meursault feel empathy for Raymond as he writes the letter? Is he not then capable of feeling empathy? Meursault speaks directly to Raymond as he explains why his girlfriend had deserved this punishment. The letter seems rationally justified because his girlfriend had cheated on him. Furthermore, Meursault more or less stumbles into the situation with Raymond and therefore does not have the chance to intensively reflect on whether someone could take damage. Meursault does not feel empathy for Raymond, but cannot think of a reason not to write the letter. Firstly, as it has been shown, the concept of apathy Camus presents in his story is that also an unemotional person can attempt to try doing the right thing. A character is not necessarily a bad person only because he is

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unaware of his emotions. If this was so, then Camus would present a Monsieur Meursault who lies in court. Meursault would thereby still be unaware of his emotions, but simultaneously invent more plausible explanations for the murder. It is not his fault that he lacks the capability of judging the emotion of others and therefore his guilt is questioned. This unawareness might therefore be like a fatal flaw and not willingly intended (see chapter ‘Apathy as Meursault’s tragic flaw’). Secondly, with an honest protagonist as created by Camus the question of reliability does not appear. Whether a character’s narration can be trusted or not, is a question of reliability.

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3.3 Reliability Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is an example for questionable reliability. The story is narrated by am unnamed person who received a manuscript from another person named Douglas. Furthermore, Douglas received the manuscript from a Governess who experienced and wrote down events. He appears to be attracted by her8 and therefore does not question the events. Thus, it is unclear if the events have really taken place and if so, if the manuscript is still the same as the Governess wrote it because it has had many owners. Another aspect where the story raises the theme of unreliability is the fact that the Governess is blinded by her affection for the housekeeper9. Emotion can distort the sight on certain events as the characters can become, according to the sayings, ‘blind of rage’ or ‘blind of love’. Reliability of the mistress, of Douglas and the story itself become highly questionable and therefore it is unclear whether the story narrated by these persons is true. In The Stranger reliability is not questioned because Meursault is an honest person. As he is the narrator, the narration must be honest as well. Furthermore, he is not distracted by any feelings blinding his view on events (like the mistress in The Turn of the Screw) because he is not aware of his emotions. Meursault describes many people in a very detailed way including the people in the city, who go to the movies, or the robot lady, who eats with Meursault and who he finds odd10. He observes many characters in the story intensively. What Camus evokes here, is not only the elaboration of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

different existences. By making Meursault a protagonist and a first personnarrator freed of any emotional description, he provides the reader with a new perception of characters in the story. This type of narrator provides reliable information because Meursault is honest and unemotional and detailed information as Meursault is an intensive observer and reflecting on others. Moreover, he is to a great extent objective as he has no emo8

“Yes, but that’s just the beauty of her passion.”, p.6, The Turn of the Screw “[…] the seduction exercised by the splendid young man. She succumbed to it”, p.5, The Turn of the Screw 10 Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger suggest that the robot lady is a suggestion that “even a minor encounter can affect one’s future” (p.20, Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger) as Meursault sees her again in the trial and she is then observing him. 9

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tion for people. He, for example, describes the Arab who he shoots in a very detailed way instead of describing him as a threat or unpleasant and so on11. But there is another aspect with regard to the narration. Avi Sagi notes in his chapter on social alienation in Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger that Meursault is a character who does not reflect on himself. Although the counterpart of ratio is emotion, Meursault does not seem to be a highly rational character, standing in contrast to Hamlet, for example, as it will be shown. Despite the fact that Meursault reflects on others, he does not reflect on himself. Furthermore, he does not reflect or calculate many of the actions he takes as for instance his statements in the trial or the senseless killing. Moreover, Sagi’s quotation of Meursault saying “[…] in recent years I’d rather lost the habit of noting my feelings […]” (p. 74, Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger) brings up a contradiction. He explains that on the one hand, this proves that Meursault is not aware of reflecting on himself, but on the other hand, this statement he brings is a reflective observation. The solution Sagi suggests would be differentiating between the Meursault as the narrator and the Meursault as the character. The narrator would be reflective and the protagonist not. This brings up the question if the narrator Meursault is also unemotional and thereby the question if unemotional narration as such is possible at all. This question will be picked up again later in this discourse.

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3.4 Apathy as Meursault’s tragic flaw One question which appeared when regarding Meursault’s downfall is if the downfall is inevitable. Furthermore, this would lead to the question if he has a flaw which makes this downfall inevitable and if this is his unawareness of his emotions, which would make Meursault a tragic hero. Understanding the lack of emotion of a character as flaw would be another aspect in defining apathy. But why examine the tragic feature? Independent of Camus’ intention as author, if Meursault was a tragic hero in the

11

“He was lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, his forehead in the shade of the rock, the rest of his body in the sun. His blue overalls seemed to be steaming in the heat.”, p.57-58, The Stranger

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classical understanding, it would set him in relation to the classical tragedy as such. The key moments of the story would therefore be of greater importance because they are what defines a tragedy and simultaneously these moments would be analysed under the aspect of apathy. Meursault as a tragic hero enables a new perspective to the theme of apathy. A definition of a tragic hero is given by Hans-Dieter Gelfert. He says that the protagonist of a tragedy must have a tragic flaw to be a tragic hero. Moreover, the hero must come into a dangerous situation as of which the downfall is predestined (“Hamartia”, p. 19, Die Tragödie). Then there must be a turning point as of which the downfall sets in (“Peripetie”, p. 17, Die Tragödie) and he must become aware of the situation shortly before his tragic death takes place (“Anagnorisis”, p. 19, Die Tragödie). Moreover, Gelfert explains that a tragic hero is neither a sinner nor a saint at the beginning of the tragedy. Regarding Meursault, one can say that he is no sinner or saint in the beginning either. He becomes a sinner only as of the point where he helps Raymond to write the letter. But he is no saint either because he has brought his mother to the elderly home, which is morally questionable for many of the characters in the story. The scene in which Meursault should write the letter for Raymond is the moment of the dangerous situation which Gelfert describes, because the point when he writes the letter is the point as of which he becomes friends with Raymond. As of there he is a friend of a criminal and his lack of emotion will lead him into further trou-

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ble. His downfall is predestined. The story climaxes in the unwilling shooting of one of the Arabs. This scene can be regarded as the turning point of the story. After this scene, Meursault is imprisoned and cannot help himself because he is unwilling to show the appropriate emotions in the moment when it is expected from him. Moreover, Meursault becomes aware of his situation before he is executed. He does not only know that he will be falling, but even reflects on what he has experienced, including his relation to Marie and what his mother might have thought. In the end, there is a glimpse of refelctive emotion as he believes that he has been

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happy12. He notices his feelings for a moment. The question which must be asked is what his flaw was which led to his downfall. Firstly, his indifference to what would happen to Raymond’s girlfriend when she will be beaten has led him on a criminal path by writing the letter. If he had had the capability of feeling empathy for the girlfriend, he would not have helped to write the letter. Since he is incapable of perceiving his own emotions, he is also incapable of judging the emotions of others. His apathy has therefore led him into this criminal environment triggering the dangerous situation. Also the turning point at the beach is triggered by writing the letter because it is Raymond who initiates the visit at his friend’s bungalow. Secondly, his apathy is the obstacle preventing him from winning the trial. He does not show any emotions in court when it is expected from him and cannot express sadness over the death of his mother. Therefore his lack of emotion becomes the tragic flaw which triggers the dangerous situation, the turning point and his final downfall. Meursault’s death is inevitable as of an early point in the story and he is therefore, with regard to these key moments of a tragedy, a tragic hero. As Meursault can be interpreted as tragic hero, he is set in relation to other tragic heroes such as Hamlet or Macbeth. This does not only show that Meursault’s fate is predestined and apathy can be used as flaw in literature, but moreover, sets The Stranger in direct contrast to other tragedies. The question which comes up is which role apathy plays in

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classic tragedies. Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet will therefore be examined in the following, furthermore, being the basis of an analysis of the relation between emotion and ratio / apathy and irrationality.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy - The Stranger The concept of apathy in The Stranger is presented in form of the protagonist’s flaw. He is unaware of his emotions and thereby does not perceive or express regret, love and so on. In the interpretation given, he therefore not only lacks own emotions but the capability of feeling empathy for 12

“I felt that I had been happy”, p.123, The Stranger

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others. Thus, the lack of emotion questions the guilt of a person because apathy can lead to the incapability to judge others. Meursault is honest and reliable and tries to stay on the right path, but fails due to his apathy. As it has been shown, his lack of emotion can be interpreted as a tragic flaw due to which his downfall is predestined. The concept of apathy in The Stranger is the entirely and unwillingly unemotional type of character – a character who is unaware of his emotions. This is the first type of

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apathy as a character trait.

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4. Controlling/repressing emotions - Hamlet ‘Controlling/repressing emotions’ is the next concept of apathy which will be analysed. The question will be asked whether Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet represses his emotions as of the meeting with the ghost. The hypothesis which will be examined is therefore that he expresses emotions particularly when the circumstances demand it in order to take revenge. Thus, his emotions must be seen as artificial as they are entirely controlled by his reason. Moreover, if this is the case, the question must be asked what Hamlet’s motivation is. Although Hamlet is often staged as emotional, the drama text itself will stand in the focus showing that it is not as obvious that Hamlet acts emotional. By contrasting the interpretation of the emotional with the apathetic Hamlet in the drama text, it will be shown that Hamlet’s controlling emotions is a possible interpretation. Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most known plays. This drama tells the story of the prince of Denmark to whom a ghost appears. This ghost is apparently his father, who claims to have been killed by his brother Claudius. Claudius is now the new king of Denmark. Hamlet seeks revenge for his father. Thus, he also harshly judges his mother, who has married Claudius, the suspected murderer, shortly after prince Hamlet’s father had parted. This desire for revenge is often considered as a motive which drives Hamlet. Hamlet’s great love seems to be Ophelia whereas he changes his opinion concerning his love for her during the course of the

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story. Polonius, who serves Claudius and is the father of Ophelia, forbids her to have any contact to Hamlet. Furthermore, Hamlet stages a ‘play in the play’, in which an analogue murder of a king is presented on stage. Thereby, Hamlet intends to provoke a reaction of Claudius. When Claudius leaves the theatre, Hamlet interprets this as a proof for his guilt. He instantly decides to take revenge. In the final battle Hamlet is poised by the slash of a sword, but survives long enough to fulfil his deed and murder Claudius. He then falls as it is necessary for a tragic hero.

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4.1 Emotion and ratio The change of Hamlet from an emotional state to an unemotional state takes place when the ghost appears and asks for revenge. Hamlet says that he will “wipe away all trivial fond records” and his father’s “commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume” (p. 214, Hamlet) of his mind. With this, it appears he also wipes all emotions from his mind and becomes unemotional. Before this scene, he mourns because of his father’s death. After this scene, he uses emotions only to achieve his aim of taking revenge. As of this point, he becomes apathetic – not only in the sense of the way he behaves when he visits Ophelia directly after the incident with the ghost and stares into the void, but also in the sense that he does not have any emotions as of this point. An indication for this interpretation is, for instance, that he prepares himself to feel a certain emotion before he goes to his mother. He says: “Let me be cruel, not unnatural” (p.282, Hamlet). This scene will therefore be described in detail in this discourse. Also before staging the play in the play he prepares for a certain emotional state by saying “I must be idle” (p.269, Hamlet). By provoking Claudius, Hamlet plays with emotion. He controls not only his own emotion, but in this case even tries to control the emotions of others. Furthermore, emotions can be something irrational. They do not necessarily apply to circumstances. For example, the love for Ophelia does not need to end as of the moment Hamlet knows she is not “fair” (p. 260,

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Hamlet) to him and his affection for his mother does not need to end as of the moment the ghost tells Hamlet about his uncle’s misdeed. But Hamlet adjusts to situations. He stops loving Ophelia and loses any affection for his mother immediately. In these situations his ratio is in control of his emotion. Emotion and ratio are two extremes in Hamlet, which have been debated intensively. Hamlet is often characterized as very emotional and at the same time excessively reasoning. This divergence between ratio and emotion is, for example, shown by the incident when Hamlet has the chance to revenge his father by murdering Claudius. But because Claudi25

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us prays, Hamlet considers that Claudius would go to heaven if he would take revenge at that particular moment13. On the one hand, he therefore seems to seek revenge, which is an expression of the affection for his father. He acts emotional. On the other hand, he thinks over every situation. He never makes a mistake due to being over-affectionate and does not take revenge (for example on Claudius) when it appears to be inappropriate. He, for example, seeks proof of Claudius’ guilt by staging a play instead of acting solely as his emotions tell him and murder Claudius before Hamlet has this final proof. In contrast to Romeo, the protagonist of Shakespeare’s drama Romeo and Juliette, who commits suicide due to his overwhelming affection for Juliette14, Hamlet rejects this idea of committing suicide because it is a mortal sin. “To be, or not to be” (p.258, Hamlet) – the first line of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, which will become of interest later in this discourse – is therefore a rational question and not a question which can be answered by emotions. The assumption that Hamlet switches from one extreme to another (from emotion to reason and vice versa) seems plausible, but another thought comes to mind. Hamlet’s expressed emotions are entirely controlled by his reason. They are, thus, artificial emotions. With regard to the relation of emotion and ratio, Lily Bess Campbell writes in her work Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion that whether an emotion is a sin or a virtue is defined by the control of emotion by

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reason. This is a hypothesis which was already supported by Thomas of Aquinas. Uncontrolled emotion is a sin. Controlled and reasonable emotion is a virtue. Furthermore, Campbell quotes Rogers who defines reason as an “order to do all things, by the consideration of things to come” (p.97, Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion). According to Campbell emotion can be controlled by reason defining reason as the consideration of following events and current circumstances. One possible explanation of the relation between ratio and emotion in Hamlet is therefore that 13

“I, his foul son, do this same villain send To heaven. O this is hire and salary not revenge.”, p. 286, Hamlet 14 “O true apothecary, Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.”, p.228, Romeo and Juliet

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Hamlet follows the convention and circumstances – the “order to do all things, by the consideration of things to come” (p.97, Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion). By reasoning he considers in which situation he is and develops emotions as it seems appropriate. This is what is meant when it is said that Hamlet adjusts to situations. He is thereby on the side of virtue. Campbell herself says that Hamlet is a slave of passion because his downfall is a cause of his grief as, for example, King Lear’s downfall is a cause of his wrath. But one needs to consider why this passion appears and if it is not Hamlet controlling his passion, instead of his passion controlling Hamlet. Why would a character who rationally rejects the idea of suicide due to his Christian belief be someone living on the side of vices by letting his uncontrolled emotions lead him? Already Claudius’ comment that “nor th’exterior nor the inward” (p.106, York Notes Advanced) Hamlet is the same as before the ghost appears, suggests one must deal with two different sides of Hamlet: the expressed emotion and the inner feeling. As it has been said, what Hamlet expresses to feel, is controlled by his reasoning. Interpreting Hamlet’s striving for revenge in this way shows a special concept of apathy because Hamlet himself does not express own emotion (he is apathetic on the inside), but only expresses emotions as he uses them to take revenge in the end. Hamlet adjusts to the situations as he prepares himself to a certain state before taking action. By adjusting he is on the side of virtue and acts rationally. In the following, examples of this special concept will be exam-

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ined in detail.

4.2 Examples of repressed emotions: Hamlet in interaction with other characters It has been said that Hamlet does not make mistakes due to being over affectionate. But is not the murder of Polonius a mistake due to affection? The play does not give any indication on what Hamlet’s emotions are in the scene in which Polonius hides behind the curtain. Neither are stage directions presented which would indicate this, nor does Hamlet speak about his emotions. However, he is rather calm. He seats the Queen and says “You go not till I set you up a glass Where you may see the inmost 27

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

part of you” (p.289, Hamlet). This sentence indicates that Hamlet knows that someone is behind the curtain because he plans something and nonetheless remains calm before he murders Polonius. One way to interpret this killing is to say that his emotions have driven him. But firstly, Hamlet is absolutely calm and secondly, he murders Polonius (in act 3, scene 4) only after he has staged the play (in act 3, scene 2) and believes to have proof that his father has been murdered by Claudius. As he also believes that Claudius is standing behind the curtain, it is a rational decision (he has proof of Claudius’ guilt) to take the chance and revenge his father. What supports the hypothesis of Hamlet not only being unemotional but controlling emotion is that he prepares himself before meeting the Queen. Therefore, he prepares to express a certain emotion and nonetheless, remains rational and calm. The relation to Ophelia is another feature which must be concentrated on as the question appears whether Hamlet’s love for her is real. Again the question which must be answered is if Hamlet adjusts to the circumstances. Ophelia herself is a character so heavily controlled by others that one could accuse her of being unemotional as well. She never expresses her own desires, but only acts as she is told. In the York Notes Advanced it is said that Ophelia speaks to the King and Queen “only when she is mad” (p.97, Hamlet: York Notes Advanced) and her madness is “less ‘real’ […] because it is so tidy, unproblematic and unthreatening” (p.98, Hamlet:

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York Notes Advanced). With regard to this interpretation, Ophelia is not only a passive instrument for the others, but she remains mostly unemotional as well due to her ‘less real’ emotions. Of primary interest, however, is the concept of apathy incorporated by Hamlet. In the beginning of the play he expresses his love for Ophelia. He even writes a letter in which he states his love for her even when he is not permitted to see her. But after his famous soliloquy, he meets with her in the ‘nunnery scene’ and the situation changes. Hamlet goes from saying “I did love you once” (p.261, Hamlet) to “I loved you not” (p.261, Hamlet) in only a few lines. On the one hand, nothing noteworthy happens between these lines, so one could assume he is not adjusting to any external circumstances. On the other 28

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hand, many authors have assumed that Hamlet knows that he is being spied on. He classifies Ophelia as an enemy as of this scene. Another possible interpretation would therefore be to say that the circumstance Hamlet is being spied on brings him to stop loving Ophelia. He adjusts to the situation. These two scenes are examples of Hamlet controlling and adjusting his emotion. Moreover, Hamlet is not only controlling his own emotions. By staging the play in the play, he even tries to evoke emotions within Claudius to gain the proof that Claudius is the murderer of his father15. He thereby tells the players to be “a whirlwind of passion” (p.265, Hamlet) and also says to himself “I must be idle” (p.269, Hamlet) shortly before the king enters. Again Hamlet prepares to feel in a certain way. Being idle is not clearly defined, but it can be interpreted as not being serious as for instance an idle threat is nothing to be taken serious. Hamlet prepares to be idle and thereby creates an illusion that his intention is not to offend the king. We have shown that Hamlet controls his own emotion and moreover, by telling the players what to do and provoking emotion within Claudius, Hamlet also controls the emotion of others. The question remaining is what his overall motivation is to repress his emotion. Also we will examine a soliloquy as it presents the character’s most inner feelings.

4.3 Soliloquies and motivation “To be or not to be” (p.258, Hamlet) is the question Hamlet asks himself. It

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is the beginning of the most famous of Shakespeare’s soliloquies and confronts the viewer or reader with the question of life or death. In soliloquies characters express their inner emotions because it is a moment in which they believe to be alone in the scene. It is a method of showing the character’s inner feeling which is not provided in a prose text as, for instance, The Stranger. In this famous soliloquy Hamlet reasons with himself whether it might be better to flee from this world by committing suicide. It is the soliloquy in the play in which we expect the most emotion as it deals with life and death. He never speaks of himself, but only speaks 15

This seems implausible. The play is an insult for Claudius whether he has murdered the king or not. If Claudius shows emotion, this does not necessarily mean he is guilty.

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in the third person. Hamlet therefore never speaks of his own feelings. The “heartache and the thousand natural shocks” (p.258, Hamlet) of this world he reflects on are not explicitly his own pains and can therefore be seen as something everyone has to cope with. This makes his soliloquy again highly rational because it appears to be more of a philosophic discourse on life and death than an expression of his own feeling. He argues furthermore that the “dread” (p.259, Hamlet) of what is to come in the afterlife prevents everyone from committing suicide. This can be understood in two ways. On the one hand, he is afraid that after his life many more pains await him as nobody really knows what happens after death and one can more easily bear the earthly pains than taking the risk of summoning many more pains. On the other hand, Hamlet has contact to his father’s apparition and therefore knows what can await him after death. “No traveller returns” (p.259, Hamlet) is a false statement of Hamlet as his father has returned. Moreover, it was common sense in the Christian belief back then that when one commits suicide one goes directly to hell. In this respect Hamlet knows that pains would await him when he would cease this world by committing this mortal sin and rather copes with the problems he has at the moment. This thought in this soliloquy is a key motive to describe Hamlets entire motivation because all of his earthly actions become only relevant with regard to the afterlife. He expects nothing more from his earthly life as he is already willing to end it. Hamlet’s final aim must therefore be to cease this world as a good person and go to a better place.

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This thought devaluates every possible action taken by him to a mere acting according to what he believes to be morally correct. Therefore, revenge is not an emotion which drives him but an action he needs to take because he believes it to be morally right and would restore justice. Hamlet’s belief becomes clear in act 5, scene 2, when he says: “Is’t not perfect conscience To quit him with this arm? And is’t not to be damned To let this canker of our nature come In further evil?” (p. 343 - 345, Hamlet)

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He believes Claudius must be stopped to prevent further evil. It is not a feeling of revenge Hamlet expresses here. If it was not for the afterlife, Hamlet would end his life already early in the play. But since everything Hamlet does is only done because he fears the consequences after his death, also the murder of Claudius serves the purpose of restoring justice. The seeking for revenge is an uncontrolled emotion (a vice), whereas restoring justice is a reasonable and controlled emotion (a virtue). When Hamlet has the chance to kill the praying Claudius he chooses not to give in to the blind passion for revenge. His aim is therefore to restore justice. This aim and the importance of the afterlife as final instance explains Hamlet’s inner apathy. Hamlet is unemotional on the inside as of the point the ghost visits him and he believes he must do something to prevail purgatory and restore justice. After having examined examples in which Hamlet openly controls his emotion and analysed his inner feelings by examining the soliloquy, the question remains what Hamlet’s flaw is, which makes him a tragic hero.

4.4 Apathy as Hamlet’s flaw As it has been analysed in the chapter regarding Meursault as a tragic hero, Gelfert gives us several aspects to define whether a character is a tragic hero. Hamlet is a tragedy following a long tradition of Shakespearean tragedies. But Hamlet’s flaw has always been a point of discussion. Several possible conceptions of a flaw such as revenge or grief have been

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given. In the following it will be attempted to identify the Hamlet’s flaw by focussing on the key moments of a tragedy given by Gelfert. The ghost which appears to Hamlet is analogue to Macbeth’s prophecy of the witches. This apparition spreads new information and triggers the course of the tragedy. It is the dangerous situation which Gelfert points out and into which the tragic hero Hamlet stumbles. It is also the moment as of which Hamlet rids himself of all emotions. Before this moment, Hamlet is neither a sinner nor a saint. He rebels against the new king and wants to travel somewhere else, but at the same time accepts decisions made by the authority. Thus, Hamlet is a rebel, but follows the laws of the king and religion. The turning point is when the play in the play is staged by Hamlet 31

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to provoke a reaction from Claudius. As of this point it is clear that Claudius is the murderer and that there will be a battle between him and Hamlet. Furthermore, also Hamlet, as every tragic hero, knows that he will fall before he dies because he is poised in a battle. One theory has been that Hamlet’s emotions lead to his downfall. Uncontrolled emotions seem to be his flaw. The appearance of the ghost triggers Hamlet’s anger, which is directed towards Claudius, his uncle and brother of the dead king Hamlet. His anger is stronger than the feeling of love he has for Ophelia and the feeling of loyalty for his mother. He also stabs the wrong person who hides behind a curtain in his mother’s room because he is determined to murder Claudius and believes him to be hiding there. This is another proof of his uncontrolled emotions because he stabs the curtain in rage. But in contrast to this theory, one might say that all of Hamlet’s emotions are controlled by his reasoning. The stabbing of Polonius has already been interpreted as unemotional due to the calmness of Hamlet. It must therefore be an artificial anger. Moreover, Hamlet has prepared himself in the scene before to feel this emotion. The scene in which this concept of repressed emotions might become even clearer is when he spares the apparently praying Claudius because Hamlet believes he would go to heaven. He does not stab him because he reasons with himself. His emotions are under control of his reason and thereby Hamlet falters. Furthermore, all of his emotions change according

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to the altering circumstances. He stops loving Ophelia and he starts disrespecting his mother for marrying so early after his father’s death only after his father appeared to him16. Hamlet adjusts his emotions rationally. Furthermore, in his famous soliloquy he speaks about the purpose of life and whether suicide is the best solution. But instead of being overwhelmed by his emotions, Hamlet reasons that suicide is a mortal sin. Taking these thoughts into account, his emotions are always controlled, so emotions cannot be his flaw. But flaw is not his flaw either. Even if he had murdered Claudius earlier it is unclear if anyone had believed the theory 16

He obeys his mother before as in the beginning when she wishes for him to stay in Denmark. “I shall in all my best obey you, madam”, p. 190, Hamlet

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that the former king was murdered and if Hamlet had not fallen nonetheless. What really causes this tragedy and his tragic death is his attempt to take revenge itself. York Notes show the “ambiguous status of the ghost” (p.103, Hamlet: York Notes Advanced) by quoting Hamlet’s doubt whether it is “wicked or charitable” (p.207, Hamlet). The ghost confronts Hamlet with ambiguous information as to say the queen is left to God’s punishment, but the new king must be punished by Hamlet himself. Hamlet’s flaw is therefore his loyalty to his father. Trusting the apparition of his father to be charitable when it says that revenge is the right thing to do, triggers the tragedy. Hamlet’s loyalty towards his father makes him gullible for his father’s apparition’s words and moreover, makes him an instrument of this apparition. As it has been said already in the case of Meursault - also the unemotional can attempt to do the morally correct thing as to restore justice. This question of morality is also highly complex in Fight Club, in which the protagonist strives to feel emotion, but thereby endangers many others. We will therefore focus on the concept of apathy in Fight Club in the next chapter.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Hamlet

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As it was shown, the relation between Hamlet’s ratio and emotion can be understood by saying that his emotion is repressed and he uses emotion according to the circumstances. He adjusts and prepares before acting. As of the appearance of the ghost he loses every emotion to take revenge. But he stays on the side of virtue by controlling his emotion and acts only rationally. Revenge is not a feeling but a rational restoring of justice. Religion and the afterlife are then the authorities which majorly form his character as every action becomes an act for the afterlife. This has become clear in his soliloquy – the moment a character expresses his inner state. In contrast to Meursault, Hamlet’s flaw is not the apathy itself but his loyalty. The concept of apathy in Hamlet is therefore a lack of the 33

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character’s inner feeling. The emotions, which Hamlet openly expresses, can be interpreted as controlled and artificial as shown in many examples. Hamlet is the willingly emotion controlling character, whose apathy is triggered by a particular incident in the story. This is the second type of an

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unemotional character.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

5. Striving to feel - Fight Club .

Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club shows up a concept of apathy which deals with two different aspects. ‘Striving for emotion’ is one of the themes which will be focussed on as it will be shown that the main character struggles to feel emotions in order to come to rest. The ‘apathy of life’ is a concept of apathy which does not present an apathy stemming from the character but from outer circumstances. Life itself becomes apathetic. These two aspects affect each other as the apathy of the protagonist is triggered by the apathy of life. Fight Club is a story about finding a purpose in life because modern life itself is questioned. The nameless first-person narrator, who is also the protagonist of the story, is trapped in the routine of his life. When he starts suffering from insomnia he visits several therapy groups for people who suffer from deadly diseases to outlive his emotions and cry. By crying the protagonist expresses his emotions, which helps him to fall asleep. At the therapy groups he meets Marla Singer, who, as the protagonist himself, does not suffer from any of the diseases of these groups either. When the protagonist notices he cannot cry in the presence of another “faker” (p.18, Fight Club), they split up the therapy groups between them. Nonetheless, the protagonist’s insomnia gets worse. On a vacation he then meets Tyler Durden, who constructs a shadow of a hand, in which he sits to achieve perfection. Together with Tyler he starts the first fight club, which helps

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him to express his emotions in another way than at the therapy groups. He expresses emotions by fighting. Anger is what he feels, instead of sadness. But the fight clubs soon run out of control and “Project Mayhem” (p.122, Fight Club) is introduced, in which the continuity and depression of life are interrupted by committing criminal attacks on several monuments. Even people get seriously injured in these attacks, which was not the protagonist’s primary intention when founding the fight club. When the protagonist tries to stop this, it turns out that Tyler is a part of himself. In the state of insomnia the protagonist transformed into Tyler, did further jobs, had an affair with Marla and started many fight clubs in the country. He is schizophrenic. In the final attack a building should be detonated. The 35

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

protagonist injures himself by shooting himself into his cheek and thereby gets rid of his alter ego Tyler. In the final scene the protagonist is shown in a mental institution.

5.1 Disrupting the state of apathy Emotion in Fight Club plays a very different role than in The Stranger and Hamlet. In The Stranger the protagonist’s emotion remains unnoticed to him. Meursault is unaware of how he feels. Emotion in Hamlet can be interpreted as something controlled by reason. Hamlet knows how he is supposed to feel and expresses his emotions according to the circumstances. But in Fight Club the protagonist wants to be able to show emotion and be able to break out of his own apathy. He suffers from insomnia, which causes a lack of emotion – “The insomnia distance of everything, a copy of a copy of a copy. You can’t touch anything, and nothing can touch you” (p.97, Fight Club). The doctor ironically tells him to visit therapy groups to see what real suffering is. The protagonist does so and is finally able to show his emotions in one of these therapy groups. By crying he is able to sleep again. By disrupting the state of apathy he is caught in, the protagonist is able to find peace. Fight Club presents a concept of apathy in which the character strives to feel real emotion. Showing emotion helps him to sleep and come to rest. Furthermore, Fight Club is a work which expresses many existentialistic features. Not only does the fight club the protagonist founds become an

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alternative to express emotions, but it is the way to break free from this apathy of life. As Tyler Durden says, the “great depression” (p.149, Fight Club) is life as such. There is a great “spiritual depression” (p.149, Fight Club), which means that nothing in life has a purpose and furthermore, everyone repeats the same routine over and over. By repeating a routine, situations become repetitive and in time, a person loses the capability to feel emotionally affected by these situations. The same concept appears with regard to objects which become mere copies in modern life, as it will be shown later in this discourse. Apathy is therefore also a conception of life as life itself lacks emotion in Fight Club. Life becomes an endless and unemotional routine, which does not provide the characters with surprises. 36

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

From the furniture, which is ordered in the catalogue, to the job one does, everything is kept in order. The individual piece of furniture is one copy of many and also in the job every day is a copy of the previous one because one does the same job every day. Because life does not provide any surprises, it cannot provide any real emotions. This apathy of life is the conflict the protagonist has to cope with. He cannot find anything he feels emotionally affected by. When visiting the therapy groups, he has found a way to express his emotions. He feels the suffering of the ill people. Also the fight clubs help him break free from his apathy, which is triggered by the apathy of life – a life which is kept in routine and repetition. At first he only wants to feel again, but the purpose of the Project Mayhem, which is then introduced, is to rid the actual cause of this apathy. The routine of life should be broken by disrupting everyone and not just feeling emotional oneself in a certain situation. It is the same principle as putting pictures into a film in the movies, as Tyler does in his job. The routine is broken. In addition, the concept of apathy of life is also the first indication that apathy reaches beyond the single character trait, which will be of interest later on in this discourse.

5.2 Who is Tyler Durden? Many attempts to classify the protagonist’s alter ego have been made. Kirsten Stirling says in her essay Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Jackass17 that “there are obvious connections to be made between it [Fight Club] and Jekyll and

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Hyde” (p.120, You do not talk about Fight Club). Tyler Durden is here compared to Mr. Hyde – a dark side of the protagonist. Another interpretation of Tyler is the comparison to Calvin and Hobbes. Galvin P. Chow notes in his essay The Return of Hobbes18 “Tyler is Hobbes reincarnated, after being trapped inside Calvin/Jack’s brain for so many years.” (p.135, You do not talk about Fight Club). As it was said the protagonist is in a state of apathy, in which nothing affects him. When he stops expressing his emotion within the therapy groups, Tyler appears. The question which

17 18

Taken from You do not talk about Fight Club. Taken from You do not talk about Fight Club.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

therefore must be of interest to our discourse is if Tyler can be seen as manifestation of the protagonist’s repressed desires. Tyler manifests himself on a vacation of the protagonist after he is not able to show emotions in the therapy groups anymore. But once Tyler has manifested himself he does not disappear as easily again. Not only in the state of insomnia does Tyler take over, where he for example is able to bomb the protagonist’s apartment, but he also appears throughout the story as second individual talking to the protagonist. Moreover, he has indirect control over the main character even when he is awake – “Tyler’s words coming out of my mouth” (p.98, Fight Club). In the course of the story Tyler provokes the protagonist to start a fight. This is the birth of the fight club and furthermore, the first step to Project Mayhem. Tyler shows him how to express emotions and thereby enables the protagonist to sleep again. Tyler himself does not lack emotions, as the protagonist does, due to the fact that nothing can touch the protagonist. On the contrary, Tyler often expresses his anger. But because Tyler is a part of the protagonist’s personality, it can be interpreted as the protagonist’s anger. This is supported by the fact that the protagonist follows Tyler’s example. Moreover, Tyler is the one who expresses love for Marla and even saves her from committing suicide when the protagonist hangs up. Whereas the protagonist is therefore indifferent to what happens with Marla, Tyler helps her. But as the reader gets to know later in the story, when Tyler becomes slightly absent for a while and the protago-

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nist expresses his emotions on his own, the protagonist himself feels for Marla19. It can therefore be interpreted that Tyler is the expression of emotions the character actually feels. He is the anger and depression against the routine of the world and the love for Marla. Furthermore, the protagonist’s striving for emotion is shown again when he follows Tyler’s example and thereby tries to live the same emotional way. By learning from Tyler, he strives to express his own anger and depression. Therefore Tyler expresses emotions and the protagonist desperately tries to do the same. Taking theses facts into account, it is therefore plausible to interpret Tyler as a manifestation of the repressed emotions of the protagonist 19

“I say, because I think I like you.”, p.197, Fight Club

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because he expresses what the protagonist feels and moreover, Tyler can express emotions whereas the protagonist cannot. One situation when the reader is confronted directly with the protagonist’s emotions expressed by himself and not by Tyler is analysed in the following. Sentences of the form “I am Joe’s Cold Sweat” (p.184, Fight Club) are shattered along the story. They provide the reader with a glimpse of what the protagonist feels. “Cold Sweat” means he feels fear and “I am Joe’s Blood-Boiling Rage” (p.96, Fight Club) presents the protagonist’s anger. But the form of these expressions seems inappropriate as the reader does not know who Joe is. One explanation is that these sentences are an indication for the protagonist’s name. But they also serve another purpose. They express the protagonist’s feelings by breaking the routine of the story. Again it is emotion which breaks the routine. As Tyler breaks the routine of life with his anger, “I am Joe’s Cold Sweat” breaks the routine (the flow of the text) of the story by leaving the reader wondering why this form of sentence has been chosen instead of saying ‘I felt anxious’. Ironically, the protagonist ends up in a mental institution, which means his routine of life is even stricter than in his life before and each day is an exact copy of the previous one. But up to this point emotions which the main character should have, like the love for Marla or the anger against the world, are expressed by Tyler with the exception of sentences of the form “I am Joe’s Cold Sweat”. It is therefore a plausible explanation to say that Tyler is a manifestation of the protagonist’s repressed emotions.

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Through Tyler the protagonist expresses emotion and by following Tyler’s example he only shows that he strives for emotion.

5.3 From copy to original – From apathy to emotion The “copy of a copy of a copy” (p.97, Fight Club) is a concept which is brought up in Fight Club. Nihilism is expressed as nothing is worth anything due to the fact that everything is a copy. Copies lose their value and therefore they become indifferent. Indifference is a form of apathy because indifference does not evoke any emotion. By trying to escape the apathy of life, which is a construction of copies, the recruits in Fight Club become copies themselves. As it is said, they do not have names until they die. 39

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

Making a difference and thereby triggering emotions in the apathy of life is achieved by the copies themselves. Only when apathy disappears, the copy becomes an original. When the recruits in Fight Club achieve their goals, trigger emotion by disrupting the state of apathy and die, they receive a name and become individuals. The concept which is shown thereby is that copies such as job routines, catalogue furniture and even the recruits lack the capability to trigger emotions. But by expressing or provoking emotion, a copy becomes an original. In Fight Club this emotion can either be achieved by a single expression of emotion such as the protagonist does within the therapy groups or as emotion in the entire situation of modern life, for example, when the bombings cause emotion in society. Moreover, the nameless recruits are analogue to the protagonist, who remains nameless to the reader as well. The recruits become all the same as they do not have a name. So the question must be asked whether or not also the protagonist becomes a copy due to his namelessness. This shows that the protagonist becomes only one of many. Nothing distinguishes him from other people who remain nameless in the story. It makes the protagonist more ‘normal’ – a face in the mass. Only within his alter ego he receives a name, he becomes more than a copy and expresses real emotion. The same concept appears in Perfume. When Grenouille, the protagonist, has found a smell which is better than the artificial human smell, others

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feel emotion because he becomes more than a copy of the stereotypical human being. The slip from copy to original is a slip from apathy to emotion. Perfume will therefore be of interest in the next chapter. It will, moreover, provide a concept of apathy in which the protagonist does not strive to feel himself, but strives to receive emotion from others. The particular type of the unemotional character although will be analysed by focussing on the hypothesis of an unemotional character experiencing emotions concerning only one feature.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Fight Club In Fight Club a protagonist is presented who is unemotional, but in contrast to Hamlet, who controls his emotions, and Meursault, who is unaware of emotions entirely, strives to express emotion. This protagonist has feelings, but they are repressed and appear in form of his alter ego. Apart from this concept of apathy as striving for emotion, the reader is presented a concept of apathy of life, which means that life itself loses the ability to evoke emotions within others. Due to the copying of situations (routines) and the copying of objects (for example the protagonist’s furniture) these situations and objects lose their value in life. The concept which the reader is confronted with in this novel is the concept of the unwillingly unemotional character, who is caught in an apathy due to modern life and strives to

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feel emotion. This is the third type of an unemotional character.

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

6. Emotion in relation to only one particular feature - Perfume The aspect which will be examined in the following is the concept of ‘apathy and smell’. Although smell and apathy at first sight do not have much in common, it will be shown that in Perfume smelling triggers emotions. The capability of smelling is a motive which functions as indication for either an emotional person if he/she has a good sense of smell or an apathetic person if he/she has a dulled sense of smell. Some characters lack the sense of smell and are therefore unemotional. It is a concept of apathy which distances itself further from real concepts of alexithymia than the other works which have been analysed. Furthermore, Grenouille, the protagonist, will serve as example to discuss the concept of apathy as an antihero regarding that Grenouille is a murderer. Grenouille is the protagonist of Patrick Süskind’s Perfume. He is born in the streets and given to several maids to raise him. One of these notices that he lacks a smell of his own and does not want to keep the orphan. Also the priest who receives him afterwards is disgusted and wants to get rid of the child. The new maid cannot smell anything herself and therefore does no notice Grenouille’s lack, but the maid’s other children try to murder him because they realize that something is different about him. Moreover, Grenouille has an extraordinary sense of smell. After he has grown up, he smells the scent of a girl and kills her when trying to inhale

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her smell. Grenouille is afraid that her smell will vanish and wants to preserve this particular smell. Therefore, he shows his extraordinary talent of smelling to a perfumer, who then allows Grenouille to work with him. After he realizes that this perfumer cannot help him in preserving particular smells, he goes to another town. On his way there, he stays in a cave and lives in his own fictive world for seven years. One day he realizes that he does not have a scent of his own and believes to know hardly anything about himself. He is determined to go on and create a smell of his own and by this shows everyone that he exists. Grenouille accomplishes to produce an artificial smell of a human and he is immediately accepted. But he goes even further and wants to create the perfect smell making every42

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

one love him. To do so, Grenouille murders several women, including a girl named Laure, whose scent is the final essence to his perfume. When he is condemned to death he puts on the perfect perfume and everyone is overwhelmed by love. But he realizes that he has only disguised himself in a smell. It is not an own smell which Grenouille has created. His existence remains questionable as he has learned nothing about himself. The people do not love him but his disguise. In the final scene he therefore pours the perfume over himself and is then eaten by the surrounding people who believe they have done something out of love.

6.1 Apathy, smell and existence The theme of apathy in Süskind’s Perfume cannot be identified as clearly as in the other works due to the fact that the protagonist has a different way of perceiving the world. This shows parallels to Meursault, who perceives the world differently as well because of his unawareness of emotion. Grenouille perceives the world with his sense of smell. His mind functions by knowing the smells he has experienced and storing them in his memory20. But before one can judge whether Grenouille, the serial killer, lacks emotions, it will be necessary to understand the special concept of emotion and apathy in relation to smell which is presented in Perfume. The last maid to whom Grenouille is sent to, Madame Gaillard, is described as having a “total lack of emotion” (p.19, Perfume) and lacking

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“every human passion” (p.19, Perfume). Simultaneously, she lacks the sense of smell. Moreover, Grenouille’s mother is said to have a “dulled” (p.5, Perfume) sense of smell and she does not seem to feel anything for her own children, who she murders, either as she does not show any conscience. Smelling is therefore synonym to feeling. If one does not smell anything, one does not feel. This is not only shown by the maid’s and his mother’s apathy, but also by the opposite when many emotions are shown as, for example, in the end when Grenouille has found the

20

“he used only nouns, and essentially only nouns for concrete objects […] and only then if the objects […] would subdue him with a sudden attack of odor [sic]“, p.24, Perfume; “with abstract ideas[…]he had the greatest difficulty”, p.25, Perfume

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perfect perfume. The better the smell they perceive the more emotion do the characters have. The people eat him and believe to have done something purely “out of love” (p.255, Perfume) because they smell his perfect scent. Grenouille is therefore someone who can control the people’s emotions to a much greater extent than Hamlet does. Grenouillle manipulates by smell and thereby manipulates the emotions directly. At the point where he has the artificial human-like perfume Grenouille believes not to have existed for the others. And it is true that when it is noticed that he does not have any smell, the affection for him disappears. As example the children who live together with Grenouille under Madame Gaillard’s occupation try to murder him because of his differentness, not out of envy or hatred21. Many other relations prove this fact as the maids, who do not want him, or the priest, who first imagines Grenuouille as son, but then is disgusted of him. The concept Süskind shows in his story is firstly that smelling and emotions are connected. Secondly, more crucially, he shows that having no smell means others have no emotion towards one and, moreover, that no emotion of others means one does not exist as Grenouille notes when he creates the artificial human-like perfume. “From his youth on, he had been accustomed to people’s passing him and taking no notice of him […] because they were quite una-

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ware of his existence“ (p.152, Perfume) Grenouille at first strives to revolutionize the world of odour after he had smelled the plum girl. But after he had stayed in the cave for seven years, he strives to create the perfect perfume and thereby strives for the love of others. In contrast to the striving for emotion of the protagonist in Fight Club, Grenouille does not primarily strive to feel on his own, but strives for the emotion of others22. At this point, he wants more than others to notice him. He wants the perfect perfume making others love him. One concept 21 “They did not hate him. They weren’t jealous of him either […] It simply disturbed them that he was there.“, p.23, Perfume 22 „Yes, that was what he wanted-they would love him as they stood under the spell of his scent“, p.155, Perfume

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of apathy in Perfume is the striving for others to love one. It is not a striving for emotion as in Fight Club, where the protagonist wants to feel, but a striving for emotion, where other people should love one as they should love Grenouille. In this interpretation the differentiation between Grenouille’s perception of the world and the other characters’ perception becomes clear. That Grenouille is not affected by smell as a trigger of emotion is shown by the fact that he himself does not fall for his own artificial smell. Smell is something rational to him. The different smells represent the order of things in which his world is categorized. One could say that Grenouille does not perceive smell on the level on which it is something unpredictable and vanishing, but it is something rational he sorts in his mind and always has access to. Nevertheless, on the rare occasions Grenouille’s emotions are mentioned, they concern smell, not the human being as such. He feels happy when he smells the plum girl and frightened when he cannot smell his own scent and therefore does fall for smell as trigger for emotions occasionally. But in contrast to the other people he is aware of the fact that it is smell he feels for. Smell does not manipulate him. Is Grenouille therefore an emotional character?

6.2 Grenouille’s apathy and further analysis of the character’s motivation Throughout the story Grenouille acts for his own benefit. He is uncompro-

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misingly murdering so that he can smell what he desires to smell. Already as a child he is described as giving no “no smile, no cry […] no stirrings from his soul” (p.22, Perfume). Furthermore, he wants to exist by controlling others. At first glance, this contradicts the interpretation that smelling means feeling because Grenouille has the best ability of smelling of all the characters and yet, he is often described as rather unemotional. But the reader is also confronted with the opposite description in Perfume. When he smells and kills the plum girl, it is said that “Never before in his life had he known what happiness was.” (p.43, Perfume). It is described that Grenouille feels reborn with a new sense of happiness – a new sense of emotions. Moreover, when he notices that he lacks an own smell and 45

McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

breathes in the fog in his dream, he feels “deathly afraid” (p.134, Perfume). These two states of Grenouille stand in contrast. On the one hand, there is the infant without any emotion and the conscienceless murderer. On the other hand, there is the afraid and happy Grenouille concerning smell. One way to explain this divergence is to say that smelling is something like a hunger/ a natural motivation and, therefore, nothing emotional. As it has been pointed out before, emotions do not contradict the character’s own will. Even if the character in a literary work has no emotions, he needs situations or objects he prefers over others trigger an action. If there was no motivation of the protagonist, no plot would form. Grenouille wants to obtain a scent of his own to learn something about himself. This is his motivation to leave the cave and it is moreover his motivation to commit suicide because he has not been able to learn anything about himself. This motivation can also be compared to a hunger for a smell. As smell gives Grenouille’s life a purpose, it is his natural aim to smell the greatest of all smells. That he strives for others to love him is another natural motivation. It serves the same purpose. He wants to exist for the others in order to learn something about who he is himself. These aims Grenouille strives for are not necessarily emotional. The hunger itself (for smell) is not simultaneously accompanied by an emotion such as being unsatisfied due to this hunger. A hunger is a physical desire and

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can, but does not have to, trigger a psychological desire. This hunger could provide Grenouille’s life with a purpose and a motivation which drives this character in this piece of literature. As it was shown already in the chapter about Meursault, a character needs such a motivation. Apathy in literature cannot mean being uninterested in everything because then no plot would take place. The hunger for smell, which was described, is such a motivation. Such an explanation for a rational motivation providing the character with a purpose in life is thinkable. Nonetheless, the intensity with which Grenouille feels happiness and fear cannot be ignored. Grenouille’s description of emotions is clearly stated and there is no indication

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to doubt that these are real emotions. In a few situations he is emotionally affected. The other interpretation would therefore be to explain Grenouille as switching from being unemotional to emotional and then back to his “coldblooded self” (p.135, Perfume). In the end, for example, he cannot explain the feeling he had when he met the plum girl. He is then again in an unemotional state. So this was only one feeling in a long period of apathy. But when does he switch from apathy to emotion? The occasions he expresses emotions appear when a relation to smell is given. He is, for instance, happy to smell the plum girl and afraid when he does not smell his own smell. Thus, he does not lack own emotions entirely but emotions triggered by the humans as such. Grenouille lacks the capability of empathy. For instance, he does not care for the girl he murders23. But it is not possible to say that Grenouille’s concept of apathy is not that he does not particularly have the capability of feeling empathy because, furthermore, there are also no objects which trigger an emotion within Grenouille. He therefore not only lacks empathy, but his emotion is focused on one certain feature: smell. In conclusion, the concept of apathy we deal with is the concept of an unemotional character expressing emotion focussed on one particular feature. An argument against this concept could be the scene in which he mingles with the common people and feels “joy […] that the others noticed nothing” (p.153, Perfume). But instead of this being a

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joy caused by humans, it is a joy caused by the functionality of the smell. It is the perfect scent which triggers joy within Grenouille, not an actual relation to another individual.

6.3 Crime fiction from the view of the murderer Another story of a serial killer by the screenwriter James Manos, Jr. is the TV-series Dexter. The protagonist, Dexter, works with the police as a forensic and therefore is not likely suspected as killer. Dexter, as well as Grenouille, has the desire to kill. For him murdering is not a procedure of collecting smell, but he collects blood samples of his ‘artwork’. Dexter says 23

“for he had only one concern – not to lose the least trace of her scent“, p.42, Perfume

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McCracken, Tony. Apathy in Literature: A Discourse on Emotionless Characters and Concepts : A Discourse on Emotionless

of himself already in the first episode of the first season that he does not have any emotions. “She’s the only person in the world who loves me. I think that’s nice. I don’t have feelings about anything, but if I could have feelings at all, I’d have them for Deb.” (9:04, season01 episode01, Dexter) But different to Perfume, where Grenouille cannot assimilate due to his differentness, Dexter does not have any problems to assimilate to society due to his lack of emotion. He says that he fakes his human interactions24. Moreover, as Dexter is also the narrator of the story, a certain effect such as in The Stranger is produced because even the murders become very rational. Therefore, the lack of emotion is a theme which is often used in crime fiction. The parallel between these two stories is that the protagonist is the serial killer, in contrast to crime fiction such as of the hardboiled tradition, in which the detective is the main character deductively identifying the antagonist behind the crime. Presenting an unemotional killer is something which is regularly used making the evil genius less than human due to the fact that he does not feel emotions. This creates the effect of presenting the reader a monster25, who is automatically the evil, and the detective, who is the good such as Agatha Christi’s innocent hobbydetective Miss Marple. But Dexter and Perfume are stories told from the perspective of the killer. By introducing the murderer as the protagonist, morals are even more heavily questioned. Furthermore, presenting the

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protagonist as unemotional creates a main character who has a similar effect as an anti-hero as it was analysed in the very beginning. One the one hand, the reader or viewer is repelled in the identification with the killer and thereby questions his/her own morals. On the other hand, the fact that the focalizer or even narrator – as in the case of Dexter who narrates the events in form of his thoughts – lack emotion makes the events also seem unemotional. A murder can then appear as a plain piece of art or a scientific mixing of smells. Crime fiction from the view of the

24

“People fake a lot of human interactions. But I feel like I fake them all. And I fake them very well.”, 06:16, season01 episode01, Dexter 25 “I’m a very neat monster”, 8:36, season01 episode01, Dexter

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murderer uses apathy to let a murder seem rational and scientific, in contrast to the hardboiled tradition where a murderer remains to be evil and inhuman as it is the enemy. Thereby, the reader more easily identifies with a killer and the reader’s attention is directed to other events because he is not emotionally affected (disgusted) by the murders as crucially. A murder becomes only one element of the story. In the description of the next concept of apathy we will also come across a story from the view of a murderer – the bounty hunter Rick Deckard. But the main character in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? will not so much be of interest as the concept of apathy as social phenomenon. Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Perfume The concept of apathy in Perfume functions on a level of fiction on which the character does not think in the same way as the reader does. Grenouille’s logic is alienated from the logic of a real person. Therefore, what is produced is a complete fictional concept of emotion and apathy. In Perfume the lack of emotion is directly connected to the capability of smelling. Grenouille is described as unemotional from his early days on, but he also expresses emotions in certain occasions as it has been shown. First it was tried to explain these emotions as a product of a motivation such as hunger, which gives Grenouille’s life a purpose. Nonetheless, the emotions described in Perfume are described too intensively. What is striking is that Grenouille only shows emotions when it

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concerns scent or a danger against his plans to create scent. Never does he have an emotion for a human being or have empathy. It is the concept of apathy when the character is unemotional, but switches to an emotional state when a certain feature appears. In Grenouille’s case this feature is scent. The character feeling emotion concerning only one entity is the fourth form apathy as single character trait.

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7. Apathy as social phenomenon - Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? Entire utopias and dystopias can be conceptualized as unemotional. Philip. K. Dick’s Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? is a work which shows the concept of ‘apathy as social phenomenon’ in a subtle and differentiated way. This chapter will therefore answer the question which different effect is produced when apathy is not only a phenomenon of a single person but of an entire society. Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? alias Blade Runner26 is the story of a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard. In this work of dystopian fiction the earth has been polluted by a world war terminus and is now covered with atomic dust. Humanity has fled to Mars. Humanoid androids have been kept as slaves there, but have made their way to earth. Rick’s mission is to hunt the escaped androids down as androids are illegal on earth. The company producing these robots tries to trick him into giving up his hunt for their products by letting his android identification test seem insufficient. But Rick notices he is being tricked and continues his pursuit. He exposes and hunts down several androids, some of which have hidden themselves in the apartment of John Isidore, a ‘special’, who lacks intelligence. It turns out that the androids aim was to extinguish Mercerism, the religion of empathy, because they lack this capability and it is this lack which makes them different. The androids tried to reveal that Mercer has been a product

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of Hollywood. One of the androids, Rachel Rosen, with which Rick has an affair, murders the real goat which Rick has bought with the money earned from his hunting. As all animals are on the brink of extinction, owning a pet (especially a real one, in contrast to the artificial animals) has become a symbol of prestige and so the death of his goat is a great loss to him. In the final scene he suddenly starts to understand Mercerism and Mercer, the god of this society, in a different way. Furthermore, he finds an electric toad, which he believes is real, but turns out to be artificial in the end.

26

The book was renamed after the success of the movie Blade Runner in 1982 produced by Ridley Scott.

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7.1 The different social groups: three levels of human emotion What Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? presents here, are three groups of people. The first group are the humans who have become resistant to the atomic dust such as Rick Deckard. This group is seen as the stereotype of human being lacking neither intelligence nor emotion. The ‘specials’ form the next group. They are also called “chickenhead[s]” (p.67, Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?) due to the fact that they have lost a large part of their intelligence because of this dust. The androids have become almost indistinguishable from humans. They neither lack intelligence nor physical strength. The capability these androids lack is feeling empathy. The test Rick performs to identify the androids tests the empathy – the “Voigt Kampff Empathy Test” (p.26, Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?). It is therefore not a test of intelligence but a test of the emotion. The emotion every human, including the specials, is able to feel, provides the androids with a problem. Empathy is therefore reserved for humans and hereby, humans are defined by their emotion, not by their intelligence. Also the specials are able to feel empathy despite their lack of intelligence. Moreover, the character of John Isidore says of himself that he even feels empathy for the artificial animals27 and he feels empathy for the androids who come to his apartment. This human ability is even more developed than within the intelligent humans. Rick Deckard lies in between of these two extremes. He does not lack empathy entirely as the Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

androids because he is a human. Proof of this is that he has an affair with one of the androids, which means that he has mercy with at least one of the androids. But his empathy is not as developed as John’s empathy because Rick is a bounty hunter without scruples. He justifies his killing with the religion of Mercerism and says that if one person feels empathy this is good for the entire society28. Moreover, if a person does not feel 27 “even though I know rationally it’s faked the sound of a fake animal burning out its drive-train and power supply ties my stomach in knots.”, p.63, Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? 28 “As long as some creature experienced joy, then the condition for all other creatures included a fragment of joy. […] You shall kill only the killers, Mercer had told them”, p.26-27, Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?

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empathy, this throws a shadow on the remaining people. By retiring the androids, he cleanses society of the people who do not feel empathy. Emotion of an individual in this regard becomes something which does not only affect a single person, but affects an entire society. This does not mean Deckard is unemotional. On the contrary, for certain individuals he does develop emotions for as for Rachel with whom he starts an affair. Nonetheless, his empathy is not as developed as within John Isidore. There is therefore a hierarchy of empathy and intelligence. As the androids’ empathy is low and intelligence is high, they are on the one end of the spectrum. The specials with their high empathy and low intelligence lie on the other end and the intelligent humans lie in between. In Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? empathy and intelligence are inversely proportional. Furthermore, there are machines such as the empathy box which even train this human ability by letting one fuse with Mercer in order to feel his emotions when he climbs up a mountain. Empathy becomes more than an emotion of a single person. It is a religion for the human society. Moreover, there are other machines to regulate the human emotion. Whether one wants to feel happy or sad is selectable. Nonetheless, some people seem to reflect on whether a feeling is appropriate in which situation. Rick’s wife, for example, chooses to feel sad because she thinks it is appropriate. Rick himself chooses to feel a good attitude towards work and

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believes that feeling sad is not the purpose of the machine. He can also avoid the emotion of fear when intruding in the apartment of an android. But as these emotions are all artificial, there are no real emotions as produced from a normal human. In The Science Fiction Handbook it is said that this mood selecting machine “illustrates the extent to which humans replace authenticity with simulation; the characters need it to feel anything at all” (p.223, The Science Fiction Handbook). Apathy becomes a social phenomenon. It is not a phenomenon of the entire life as in Fight Club. Apathy here does not refer to outward circumstances the life provides, thereby, triggering apathy within the individual. Apathy in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? refers to a social phenomenon, which is 52

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accepted and intended by society. As it was said, this story “calls the definition of “human” into question” (p.222, The Science Fiction Handbook). This is done by “blurring the boundaries between human and android, an aspect of its larger blurring the boundary between reality and stimulation” (p.222, The Science Fiction Handbook). Apathy as social phenomenon deals with a willingly intended apathy because also emotions (just as the artificial animals and artificial humans) are simulations. On the one hand, being human is defined by empathy. On the other hand, real emotions – empathy being one of them – have become rare and only exist within people who cannot afford artificial emotions as the specials. Apathy as social phenomenon is an external concept of apathy and describes not life as apathetic but society. The origin of the lack of emotion is different. Thereby, the question appears whether society is still humane or if it loses the connection to reality due to mass simulations.

7.2 Empathy and emotion for oneself As it was shown in many works before, there are two kinds of aspects of emotions which must be distinguished. The emotion of oneself is contrasted with the empathy for others. In The Stranger there is a connection between these two concepts. Due to Meursault’s unawareness of his own emotions, he is incapable of feeling empathy. His apathy in emotion for himself also causes apathy concerning empathy. Grenouille lacks empathy entirely as he cannot feel for other humans but only for their smell. In

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Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? it is the empathy which defines the human. Whereas androids are sometimes described as seeming puzzled and frightened, they entirely lack the capability of feeling empathy. This shows the divergence between the emotion of oneself and empathy. Androids apparently pretending to feel empathy only do so due to their will to assimilate. Mercer is the god of empathy. Everyone has an “empathy box” (p.17, Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?), with which one can fuse with Mercer and experience his sufferings. Empathy is how humans define themselves. This is also shown by the fact that everyone needs to have an animal as status symbol. People feel empathy for animals. Citizens who cannot afford a real animal due to the fact that animals have 53

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become rare and expensive buy an artificial animal. The androids try to extinguish Mercerism because they are outsiders as long as Mercerism and empathy exist. The other machine controls, as it has been said, the emotion of oneself. The contrast between these two machines shows the divergence between empathy and feeling for oneself clearly. Apathy can therefore appear in two ways in literature: as lack of empathy and lack of emotion of oneself.

7.3 Creating apathy in society Another dystopia is presented in Kurt Wimmer’s movie Equilibrium from 2002. In this society people entirely get rid of their emotions. Whereas Hamlet controls his emotion by reason and Rick Deckard uses a machine to control his emotion, the characters in Equilibrium rid their emotion with medicine. What is produced as within Hamlet and Rick is not emotion but apathy. People in this society believe that living with apathy rids their community of war. As hatred cannot be felt, there is no reason for war. But emotions as love vanish as well because also love can trigger wars. For the purpose of maintaining this condition every work of art, literature and objects which could provoke an emotion within the human being are destroyed. The protagonist in Equilibrium lacks emotions and hunts those people who have emotions or possess such a piece of art. The initial situations of these two works of utopian fiction are controversial. Rick hunts the unemotional to protect society of danger and the protagonist in

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Equilibrium hunts the emotional for the same purpose. As empathy in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? is something androids lack, it is an indication for the lack of humaneness. A protagonist as in Equilibrium does not only lack humaneness due to the fact that he is an assassin, but moreover, because he cannot feel empathy. Empathy is in both works the definition of humaneness. What both of these dystopian fictions have in common is the presentation of a world in which what is essential to the conception of the human being, his emotion, is at its limits. Equilibrium expresses the importance of human emotion as without emotion there is a lack of humaneness – a lack of art and literature and human-like behaviour. In Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? emotion is not only what 54

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separates the humans from the unemotional androids. Moreover, it contrasts the bounty hunter without scruple, who is able to adjust his emotions, with the chickenhead, who feels empathy for even the robots29. Whereas John Isidore feels real empathy for animals, Rick Deckard wants to possess a status symbol. The story of Rick Deckard therefore shows again how close emotion and humaneness are connected.

7.4 Dystopias and utopias Not only dystopias but also utopias deal with emotion and apathy. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, for instance, the protagonist lands on an island with talking horses called Houyhnhnms. They are said to be very rational and have an advanced society. Gulliver is so impressed by these very rational creatures that he maintains their habit of galloping even when he returns to his home. These creatures try to learn everything about Gulliver’s world. So he talks to a leader every day and presents all of his knowledge. But whereas these creatures are very intelligent and their “grand Maxim is, to cultivate Reason” (p.246, Gulliver’s Travels), they lack emotions. One example by which this becomes clear is that they do not grieve for their dead30. Contrasting these creatures there are human-like creatures which are highly emotional. They are called Yahoos. Humans therefore become the inferior species due to their wild and emotional behaviour. Apathy is a feature of a highly developed culture. But also other utopias deal with emotion and apathy. Often descriptions of

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highly advanced societies present the reader with communities which deal with their problems in a rather unemotional way. For example, Thomas More’s Utopia confronts the reader with an idea of education which seems rather disturbing. It is said that children are taught the right ideas to

29 This does not mean that Rick is an unemotional character. On the contrary, Rick feels empathy for the android, Rachel Rosen, he has an affair with. However, John Isidore is more heavily affected by his emotion as he even feels, for example, for the fake animals. 30 “[…] their Friends and Relations expressing neither Joy nor Grief at their Departure, nor does the dying Person discover the least Regret that he is leaving the World”, p. 252, Gulliver’s Travels

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preserve their society31. The question which comes up is therefore what the right ideas are and if this is not a way of manipulation – if the development of the human mind is not suppressed hereby. The reader is confronted with a problem which suggests an emotional response, but the problem is rationally explained and not further questioned. Another example for the attempt of explaining an in the real society emotional conflict by rational means are the “Ritual War Games” (p. 71, Ecotopia) in Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia. Whereas our society would see this highly critical due to the fact that war is never considered as anything valuable and sheer brutality is nothing to be proud of, Ecotopians see these games as a cleansing of aggression. Despite the fact that the outer world criticises these games in the story, again, a rational explanation is given in Ecotopia itself for an event which would trigger many emotional debates in our real society. By examining conflicts in this apathetic and rational way, the focus lies on the emotion of the particular society. On the one hand, the value of questioning these conflicts with emotions becomes clear. If the societies would bring up the emotion these conflicts as such already suggest, then the results of these conflicts would be different. On the other hand, a new perspective on certain questions is presented. The conflicts are alienated to conflicts of our society. In conclusion, also by dealing with conflicts in this apathetic way, the importance of balancing emotion and ratio is

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shown.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? presents three different social groups incorporating three different levels of apathy. How closely humaneness and emotion are connected is shown in this story. The concept of apathy which is shown is that the unemotional are inhumane. This becomes clear by introducing three groups of people: The humans, the 31 “[…] while children are still at an impressionable age, they’re given the right ideas about things […] best calculated to preserve the structure of their [the Utopians’] society”, p. 123, Utopia

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specials and the androids. These contrast the different levels of human emotion. Moreover, utopian and dystopian fictions present a concept of apathy and emotion which, within itself, always indicates a criticism of real societies. The concept of apathy which is shown here is the concept of creating different levels of emotions (within the groups) in order to differentiate the levels of humaneness. In conclusion, apathy is also a concept beyond the single character trait and can appear as social phenomenon. This social phenomenon confronts the reader with an immediate criticism of society. In Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? this criticism tackles not only our society but humaneness as such. Also by examining further utopias and dystopias this was shown as problems with emotional origin were explained rationally leaving these conflicts unresolved and inexplica-

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ble to the reader.

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8. Apathy in the narration - Boyhood When regarding The Stranger one aspect which was noted was that the unawareness of emotions of Meursault, the character, is also present in Meursault, the narrator. In this concept the protagonist is simultaneously the narrator. It is therefore necessary that the narration changes if the protagonist has a certain character trait. Moreover, in the chapter ‘crime fiction from the view of the murderer’ we have examined Dexter, who is also narrator and protagonist at the same time. A character lacking emotion who is also the narrator suggests that the narration lacks emotion as well. But there are also works in which the protagonist is not unemotional, but the narration is. One example hereof is Boyhood. Boyhood is the autobiography of the South-African author J. M. Coetzee. In third person Coetzee describes his youth. The little boy, John, grows up in a standard South-African environment with standard family consisting of parents and children although he does not see his family as normal. He goes to school and makes friends with a coloured boy and a wealthy Greek. In the course of the story, he finds his father lying in bed instead of looking for a job which raises his disrespect towards him, whereas he always strives for the love of his mother. He knows that their entire family is different because they wear shoes and are atheists. He himself chooses to be Roman Catholic in school and thinks of it to be a mistake afterwards. Moreover, he thinks of himself as especially different as he, for example,

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prefers the Russians over the English, which is not seen with pleasure. How must we understand apathy in the narration? As apathy was defined as lack of emotions a narration must tell events or describe characters unemotionally. The narration must not judge on emotions as it would thereby be reflecting on these and would have a basis to judge. The narration would then be emotional. This knowledge providing the basis to judge brings us to the question who has this knowledge and thereby points to the figure of the narrator. A narration cannot be thought without the figure of the narrator. In conclusion, if the narration lacks emotions then so does the narrator. Narration and narrator are not separable as the only 58

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thing we learn about the fictive narrator is what the narration provides. Furthermore, apathy is something which was only defined as a person’s condition. Therefore, lack of emotion must be defined as the fictive narrator’s condition. Moreover, apathy in the narration cannot be found in dramas such as Hamlet, because there is no personified narrator. The information the stage directions provide are mostly only brief and unemotional orders, which would be unusual to trigger emotion. In The Stranger the main character and narrator are the same person. The story is narrated in first person. Boyhood presents a narration in which protagonist and narrator are the same as well, but this is only the case when we regard this work of literature as an autobiography. Unless we understand the narrator as Coetzee himself and the boy in the story as his young form, protagonist and narrator are not the same entity. Premising this assumption, Boyhood is narrated by Coetzee in third person. We are presented a homodiegetic narration because only one character is focalized and nonetheless, the story is told in third-person32. This is uncommon for autobiographies as writing in first person is rather natural to describe past events. Furthermore, it is written in a present tense. Coetzee therefore writes this autobiography as if it were not himself he is talking about. He keeps the distance to his own character, and yet, does not describe it as past events, but as something he is watching at the moment. In order to define what apathy in the narration is it will be necessary to analyse an

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example. “The hens shriek and struggle, their eyes bulging. He shudders and turns away. He thinks of his mother slapping stewing-steak down on the kitchen counter and cutting it into cubes; he thinks of her bloody fingers.” (p.2, Boyhood) Already in the very beginning of the story the reader is confronted with a horrific scene, which is able to trigger several intense emotions as disgust and pity within the reader. This scene becomes even more shocking as we 32

It is not an autodiegetic narrator because the narrator of the autobiography is not the real Coetzee. It is only an assumption that the narrator and protagonist are the same as it is an autobiography.

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understand that this is seen from the perspective of a little child. As the quote by Michiko Kakutani on the cover of the book notes, Boyhood is “Fiercely revealing, bluntly unsentimental” (from The New York Times33). But what exactly is unsentimental? The focalizer is Coetzee in his youth. The reader therefore follows a boy and his thoughts. But it is not the thoughts which are unsentimental as it is normal to have these rather repelling thoughts when hearing the hens. It is the narration and the choice of words which are unsentimental. Instead of mentioning briefly that the boy thinks of the hens, this thought is described in every detail. Boyhood deals with very mature and rational thoughts of a little boy. Never in the book is the reader confronted with childish and naïve thoughts. The boy believes he must commit suicide when he is ever called up to the front of the class due to a bad behaviour because the shame would be too great34. This, on the one hand, is a thought which seems to be naïve and childish on the one hand. But on the other hand, it only seems this way at first sight because a boy of this young age should not be concerned with suicidal thoughts. It is one of many very rational reflections presented in Boyhood. It is therefore likely to assume a narrative figure which narrates in retrospect. The reader is confronted with an excessively detailed narration of the boy and his very mature and rational thoughts, which stand in contrast to his age. To contrast this type of narration a different example will be examined.

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“But oh, the loneliness, the agonized pain! for that night, and for nights on nights to come! The anguish that sleeps all day on the heart like a heavy worm, and wakes up at night to feed” (p.9, The Story of an African Farm) This scene from Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm has a similar setting. It plays also in South Africa and also deals with the thoughts of a little boy. Therefore, it provides a suitable comparison. In contrast to Boyhood, the reader is confronted with a longer and poetic 33

The quote is taken from the Cover of Boyhood’s Penguin edition. “[…] there will be so humiliating a scene that he will never again be able to go back to school; in the end there will be no way out but to kill himself.“, p. 7, Boyhood 34

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description of emotions. “But oh, the loneliness”, for example, reminds the reader of a poem. The story is also written in third-person, but in this example it is a heterodiegetic narrator as the reader receives information about all of the characters. Moreover, the story is written in past tense. The present tense of Boyhood’s narration creates a feeling of immediacy. The little boy’s thoughts and actions are therefore immediately described and there is a feeling of an extreme honesty in the narration. The boy in The Story of an African Farm is described in past tense and thereby the story loses this feeling of honesty and stated hard facts. The past tense and poetic description make the story and narration seem as if it had much more time to reproduce the details. For example, the metaphor of the worm which lives in the heart is used in the quotation given. This shows the contrast between an emotional and an unemotional narration. Whereas Coetzee lets his boy make immediate rational assumptions, Schreiner describes the boy’s emotions in a very metaphorical way. Whereas the narration in Boyhood can be interpreted as apathetic, the narration in The Story of an African Farm emotionally describes the events.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Boyhood Apathy in the narration is a possible concept. As emotions are something bound to a character, apathy must be a character trait as well. What must therefore be regarded is the fictional conception of the narrator. Whether

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or not this narrator expresses any emotion, can only be seen in the narration itself. In Boyhood this apathy is created by immediate and rational telling of events – an honest listing of facts and thoughts. Present tense and lacking detailed description of events can be indications. But, moreover, apathy in the narration can also be understood as tendency because the type of narration can often change within a story and we can never fully grasp the identity of the fictional narrator.

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9. Apathy in the setting – Endgame and Dubliners It was analyzed that apathy is not necessarily bound to a character, but can also appear in the narration. Nevertheless, the narration premises a concept of a narrator, whether he is present or not. But there is one more feature in which apathy must be searched for. This is the setting in which the story takes place. Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and James Joyce’ Dubliners will serve as examples for this chapter to answer the question if there is something as the concept of ‘apathy in the setting’ or if we cannot speak of apathy when the setting is regarded. Endgame is set in a post-apocalyptic scenery, in which the two main characters are forced to get along with each other. Hamm sits in a wheelchair in the middle of a desolated room and cannot see. Outside of this room everything is grey. Clov, Ham’s son, is crippled by a pain in his leg. He depends on Hamm as he knows the combination to the ladder providing both of them with food. But only Clov can see and move Hamm around. Furthermore, Hamm seems to have been no real father for Clov and so they only stay together as they depend on each other, not due to an emotional bound. In the course of the play Nell and Nag, the grandparents of Clov, appear in trashcans, but play only a minor role. Nell has no desires anymore, only memories. Remembering a sea, is the only thing she wants, whereas Nag constantly asks for his sugarplum. In the end

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Clov wants to leave Hamm and go outside, but he never does. Endgame presents a setting which is unique in its desolation. In the course of the story Clov looks out of the windows with a telescope, but finds nothing. Everything is grey. The setting is a post-apocalyptic place where nothing comes from the outside because the outside is dead. But desolation is not only found outside. It is also on the inside as everyone is decaying due to their illnesses. Adorno says in his essay Versuch, das Endspiel zu verstehen35 that the alteration from minimum to nothing36 is shown in this play. But the setting is not only desolate and minimalistic. 35

Taken from Noten zur Literatur. In the German original Adorno calls this “Übergang vom Minimum zum Nichts“ (p.311, Noten zur Literatur).

36

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Nothing in the setting causes an emotion within the characters. “Is my dog ready?” (p.111, Endgame) is a question which indicates that playing with the dog is a daily routine. It is something insignificant Clov and Hamm do everyday in order to do something at all. The alarm which sounds and of which Clov finds “The end is terrific” (p.115, Endgame) seems again like an ironic attempt – as it is a constant alarm clock sound – to do anything at all. Moreover, there is a rat in the kitchen and Clov says “If I don’t kill that rat he’ll die” (p.125, Endgame). This is a statement which becomes indifferent because it and even the action behind the statement are selfevident. Taking all this into account, the indifference towards the setting is shown. The characters verbalize their emotion towards these objects (dog, alarm clock and rat), but also this verbalization and expression of emotion have become a routine and lost the capability of causing a real emotional reaction. As Adorno says, Beckett’s dramas incorporate a loss of personal entity37. Apathy is expressed again because everything becomes a copy. The reader is confronted with the concept of apathy of life – an endless routine –even going beyond Palahniuk’s concept as none of the characters can feel emotionally affected by any of the objects in the setting. It is not the modern life as such preventing the feeling of emotion in Endgame but the indifferent objects in the setting, which seem to be used every day. What is also part of the setting are not only the objects and surroundings but the time the play is set in. But concerning the time, there are no indications when the story plays. Clov says that it is always “Zero” (p.94,

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Endgame). However, it is said that “The end is in the beginning and yet you go on” (p.126, Endgame). What Beckett creates here appears like a loop in time, in the sense that not only nothing changes from the beginning to the end of the play (the initial state is reconstructed: Hamm goes back to sleep in the middle of the room), but moreover, it is a play which seems as if it could be repeated endlessly. As with the dog, same routines are repeated and same questions are asked as they have been asked several times before38. Again, repetition creates a distance to individualism and thereby loses the capability of really affecting one. It is not the character 37

In the German original Adorno calls this “Verlust personeller Einheit” (p.295, from Noten zur Literatur). 38 “All life long the same questions, the same answers”, p.94, Endgame

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who cannot feel emotion but the setting which becomes a routine and a copy of the day before, which cannot evoke emotion within a character due to its repetitiveness. However, the setting evokes emotion within the reader or viewer of the play because the setting is depressive and not emotionless. The reader therefore has a different view on the setting than the characters themselves. Another way to understand apathy in the setting is to understand the setting as a person, who lacks emotions. James Joyce’ Dubliners can serve as an example hereof. Dubliners is a cycle of short stories, which are all set in Dublin. The short stories represent different stages of age and are chronologically ordered from young to old – ending with the story ‘The Dead’. Dublin appears personified in some stories. As the setting becomes a person itself, it can not only trigger emotion within the characters, but it can experience emotions itself. Due to the fact that Joyce has lived in Dublin and has knowledge of the city, many places become recognizable. Nevertheless, Dublin becomes more than a historical setting. Dublin receives an own personality in these stories. ‘Araby’ is the story of a boy who wants to go to a market and buy something for his secret love. Especially the beginning of this story shows the personified setting. “The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within

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them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.” (p.19, Dubliners) In the beginning paragraph of this short story the houses are personified. The houses are given a consciousness and a face, being able to see each other. It was said that the state of apathy is bound to a person in the beginning of this discourse. By imagining the setting as a person, we could understand the setting as an unemotional entity. Brenda Maddox writes in her introduction “His summary judgement of Ireland appears as a word on the very first page of Dubliners: paralysis” (p. ix, Dubliners). This paralysis can be understood as the people who do not take their chance. But as it 64

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refers to the setting, Dublin itself is paralysed. The reader is confronted with a conscious setting. And as it does not express emotion it can be understood as apathetic. In conclusion, apathy in the setting can also be understood as an apathy of the setting itself – an alive and conscious but passive Dublin.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Endgame and Dubliners After figuring that apathy in narration is possible, it was analysed whether apathy in the setting can be found. In contrast to the narrative, a setting normally does not have a concept of a person who could be emotional (as a narrator). Apathy in setting must therefore be understood as a setting which does not trigger any emotions. Endgame has presented us with such a setting, which mostly does not trigger emotions because the objects seem to appear everyday and the characters interact with them everyday anew. However, this setting is the exception as normally a story is provided with things that emotionally affect the characters. Another way of understanding apathy in the setting is to have a setting which is personalized as in Dubliners. Here the reader is confronted with the description of a town with consciousness. It can be seen as a paralyzed city – it is not emotionally affected. Nonetheless, hereby the boundaries between setting

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and, for example, characters, which these houses become, blur.

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10. Intermediate conclusion 10.1 The four types of apathetic characters We have looked at several concepts of a character’s apathy in the first part, four of which served as example to analyse the types of unemotional characters. The clearest concept of apathy as character trait is shown in The Stranger. In this novel the protagonist is unaware of his emotions, which means he neither perceives and feels emotions, nor expresses emotions or empathy. This concept of apathy is one of the easiest to grasp as it comes the closest to the real phenomenon of alexithymia. No situation or object evokes an emotion within the character. But it was also explained that a literary figure needs a motivation (something he prefers over another), which is different to the real phenomenon of alexithymia. Without a motivation there would be no plot. Moreover, this particular form of apathy functions as a tragic flaw in the story leading to Meursault’s inevitable downfall. In contrast, Hamlet confronts the reader with a more complex conception of apathy. When examining his soliloquy, which shows the character’s inner emotions the clearest, we have not only seen that he does not mention his emotions directly, but have noticed that what limits him is the dread of the afterlife. It was explained that his earthly life loses value as it is only a state before the afterlife. As it loses value, it loses the capability to trigger emotions within Hamlet, which supports the interpretation of Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Hamlet as unemotional. This unemotional character represses his emotion and furthermore, controls his emotion to accomplish his desire to restore justice/ take revenge. The protagonist of Palahniuk’s Fight Club is an example for the effect of repressed emotions. He develops his alter ego Tyler Durden only after he cannot express grief in the therapy groups. By fighting, the protagonist finds another way to express his emotions, but Tyler does not disappear anymore. Moreover, this story presents the concept of the apathy of life, which means that life has nothing which can trigger emotions because it is only a series of copies. This leads to the protagonist’s desire of feeling emotion and thereby disrupting the routine and apathy of life. It is not the 66

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character, who does not feel emotionally affected over certain situation and objects, but life, which does not provide any values anymore. The reader is presented an unemotional character who strives to feel. Süskind presents a concept of apathy which does not relate to the real concept of alexithymia as smelling, feeling and existing become the same. Grenouille is an unemotional character as well, but he has strong desires in contrast to, for example, Meursault. It was shown, however, that these desires do not contradict the interpretation of being unemotional because they appear only in relation to smell. His aim is a striving to prove his existence to others. In contrast to the third conception, in which the character strives to feel emotions on his own, this unemotional character wants others to feel emotion for him. The only occasion Grenouille feels emotion is concerning smell. The unemotional character Perfume deals with is the unemotional feeling only in relation to one feature. Four concepts of an unemotional character have been examined: the unaware character, the controlling character, the character striving to feel emotions himself and the character feeling only in relation to one feature. These are the types of characters regarding apathy as character trait.

10.2 The two forms of apathy as external concept Apathy is the state in which interest in situations and objects is lost. These situations and objects, as it has been said, do not affect the character emotionally. This described loss of relation to situations and objects can

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appear either when the character is not affected due to his condition or when nothing affects the character due to the settings condition. Four types of characters who are not affected have been examined, but also two forms of apathy as external concept have been analysed. In these external concepts it is not the character who does not feel emotionally affected, but the surrounding which lacks the capability of emotionally affecting. In Fight Club we were presented with the concept of apathy of life. This concept describes modern life as a series of copies. From the catalogued furniture to the job routine, everything has less value because it is nothing individual. As these things lose their worth, life as such loses worth – it 67

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loses situations and objects over which the character can feel emotionally affected. Life itself becomes unemotional and due to this also the protagonist. The first external concept of apathy is the apathy of life. The other form of apathy as external concept is the apathy as social criticism. In Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? there were three groups of people presented. With regard to these it was shown that empathy and intelligence were used in relation to each other. Moreover, as the empathy test targeted the non-human, empathy became a symbol or sign of humaneness. Also the empathy and emotion for oneself have been contrasted. Further utopias and dystopias have been analysed figuring that apathy appears in many fictive societies as social phenomenon. Many societies use rational explanations for problems which have an emotional origin. When society loses its emotions, it simultaneously loses its humaneness. Both of these concepts always function as criticism. The first concept presents a criticism of life and the mass production taking place. The second presents a criticism of society and eradication of emotions by rationalizing everything.

10.3 Apathy in the setting and narration The concepts of apathy as external phenomenon were first indications that apathy is not necessarily a concept bound to the character. It does not have to be a character trait. Therefore, the question whether apathy can

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be found in form of narration or setting has been asked. Apathy in the narration was shown in Boyhood. This autobiography has a unique narrative as it is written in third person and yet describes the author’s youth. Apathy in the narration has been explained as a narration which does not judge upon the feelings of the characters. Because we have said that the emotions in a narrative must be the emotions of a fictive concept of a narrator, this narrator must be unemotional and, thereby, must not have an emotional basis to judge upon others feelings. In Boyhood the reader is confronted with a homodiegetic narration briefly and immediately listing events. Also the protagonist’s emotions are not intensively examined. Rather do his thoughts and reasoning fall into focus. 68

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Nonetheless, we have furthermore pointed out that apathy in the narration can also be a tendency, more than a constant state, as some events can be described rather unemotional and others rather emotional and we can never fully grasp the figure of the narrator as we know of him only through the narration. In Endgame it was shown that apathy can appear in the setting as well. When nothing in the setting affects the characters emotionally, we speak of apathy. In Endgame, in particular, this is created on the one hand, by the apocalyptic and grey surrounding and on the other hand, by the routines that are repeated endlessly. Another way of interpreting apathy in the setting is to explain the setting itself as a character. Joyce’ Dubliners, for example, presents the city in certain passages as a conscious being. Moreover, the city does not have any emotions. It is a passive and unemo-

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tional setting.

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11. Comparison of further key differences 11.1 Assimilation to society One major difference between the concepts which were examined is the assimilation to society. This is especially important as it decides on whether the character who lacks emotion is detached from the society presented in the literary work. An unemotional character who cannot control his emotions, and thereby assimilate, functions in literature as an outsider. These characters are not the everyday men, but they are the misfits. Meursault does not assimilate by showing emotions. He believes to be unfaithful when he pretends to have emotions he does not have. Meursault falls out of line due to his lack. Hamlet, in contrast, expresses artificial emotions. Although Hamlet is also a misfit, he assimilates to a much greater extend than Meursault concerning emotion. On the surface, Hamlet is not different to the other characters in the play and he does not fall out of line because of his apathy, but because he wants revenge. All the actions taken by Hamlet are plausible. The protagonist in Fight Club is assimilated in the beginning as well. He lives in conformity. But he starts to detach when Tyler appears. This protagonist willingly does not assimilate. Grenouille, in contrast, is never fully assimilated which has its roots in his lack of scent, lack of certain emotion and, thus, being different. He is unwillingly a misfit and strives for assimilation. Also in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? assimilation is a major topic as the androids try to Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

assimilate, but fail due to their lack of empathy. But it is not the protagonist himself who needs to assimilate due to a lack.

11.2 Religion

“How Tyler saw it was that getting God’s attention for being bad was better than getting no attention at all. Maybe because God’s hate is better than His indifference” (p.141, Fight Club) Tyler’s attitude towards god and religion presents a special concept. God’s grace is not an option given as Tyler cannot feel the presence of any god. 70

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If there is a god, then Tyler believes he is absent and does not care about what happens. Only by provoking god, he becomes present within anger. Fight Club paints a picture of religion where god is absent and indifferent. As everything in life, god does not trigger any emotion within the protagonist. Therefore, it is not only the apathy of life. It is also the apathy of religion. Also the organization of the fight clubs reminds of a religious institution, but the connection to apathy can only be found within the actual belief, not the institution. Meursault does not believe in a god, which cannot be understood by several characters such as the inspector and the priest. He believes that humans cannot be sure of an existence beyond the ones you can prove and therefore everyone is responsible for his own actions taken. Meursault cannot rationally grasp religion and an afterlife as he believes to be sure about his life and the priest cannot be sure of anything39. He lacks not only emotion but belief. In Hamlet religion plays a great role because his father’s ghost is in purgatory. Moreover, he decides not to commit suicide because this would be a mortal sin and not to kill Claudius while he is praying because he would go to heaven. In this drama religion is therefore the instance controlling the actions of the protagonist. Hamlet is very religious. His belief can be explained as a cause for his apathy because it is this belief and the dread of the afterlife which devalues his earthly doings. The last concept is the unemotional character playing god. The heavenly

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figure Grenouille becomes in the end strives for the love of the others. Grenouille himself becomes the unemotional god and is compared to Christ when he wears the perfume, not caring for the human as such because he is incapable of feeling empathy. He is able to change everything, but does not see any purpose in his deeds. Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? deals with religion by introducing mercerism. Religion is here deeply connected with emotion. It is connected to empathy.

39

“But I was sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, […]”, p.120, The Stranger

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11.3 Will to live and the downfall Meursault is content with his death because he believes he was happy. Hamlet wants to die because he thinks everything is pointless, but goes on living due to the dread of the afterlife. In Fight Club one becomes a name after death; one becomes an identity in fulfilling one’s purpose. Grenouille commits suicide by letting others eat him because he was not capable of making a real difference concerning his existence. All of the works dealing with apathy also deal with the will to die. Apathy is in no case the actual reason to commit suicide. It functions rather like a flaw of the character, which forces him to perceive the world differently40. Furthermore, it is a flaw which the characters want to extinguish. It is the question of life’s purpose which is discussed in these works. Apathy becomes more than a character trait. In all of the four works in which we have analysed the concept of apathy as a single character trait the character ended in a downfall. Thus, the lack of emotion as character trait is a foreshadowing or an indication of this downfall as the deadness of the inner emotion leads to the death of the physical self. The tragic downfall is therefore another aspect which has come up in the past discourse. We have identified apathy as the tragic flaw leading to Meursault’s downfall. Moreover, although Hamlet becomes unemotional as well, it is not his flaw, as it was shown. Hamlet’s flaw is his loyalty towards his father making him gullible towards the apparition’s orders. Copyright © 2013. Diplomica Verlag. All rights reserved.

Only after he is given the orders does he become apathetic. Apathy is rather a result of his flaw, not the flaw itself. Grenouille and the protagonist of Fight Club are analogue to Hamlet because they also embody a certain concept of apathy, but it is not their fatal flaw. If one tries to identify a flaw within Grenouille which is the reason for his downfall, then this is his differently functioning mind. Without the desire to smell the perfect scent, he would not have to murder. Grenouille, indeed, is apathetic when it does not concern smell, but it is not what triggers his downfall. Again apathy is only a result of his fatal flaw – his differently functioning mind. In Fight 40 It is one flaw of the character trait, but this does not refer to the tragic or fatal flaw triggering the final downfall.

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Club the protagonist suffers from insomnia when he is not able to express his emotions, but this is not his fatal flaw either. What really triggers his downfall is his extreme case of schizophrenia. This is triggered by the lack of emotion, but this lack does not originate within his character but within the apathy which modern life creates. Many people may suffer from insomnia, but the extreme case of schizophrenia is unique and therefore, the reason for his particular downfall. What has become clear when comparing these key differences is that the character’s existence in relation to his surroundings must stand in the centre of the analysis. The will to assimilate deals with one’s identity in society, religion deals with the existence beyond the earthly one and the will to live raises the question for the existence’s purpose. Even when we examine the downfall, it becomes clear that apathy is only a flaw in relation to others as in Meursault’s case. Thus, the philosophic message of the texts concerning the human existence must be examined in order to

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identify the role of apathy of the character in relation to his environment.

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12. Criticism in the text (philosophy in literature) Up to this point of the study, concepts of apathy which are relevant in the plot have been analysed. The next feature which must be looked at is the effect a text has beyond the plot. This effect can either be a message within the text, which should be transmitted to the reader or the effect on the viewing experience of the reader. The first interest will be the message of the text. Regularly, this message provides the reader with a certain criticism. But how is this criticism constructed? The immediate assumption when mentioning a message in the text would be to expect that the author wants to say something to the reader – he wants to transmit a message. This can be correct and surely the author writes his work with such an intention, but as Bennett and Royle say, there have been many debates about the “death of the author” (p.20, Literature, Criticism and Theory). This concept, which was first introduced by Roland Barthes, explains that the text becomes detached from the author’s intention as it is published. It is true that the author writes a text with a certain intention, but as the text is read by others, it becomes a separate entity. The message of a text can therefore also be described without assuming that there is an author’s intention. Mostly, the author’s intention is only one of many interpretations. More crucially said, the message the text produces only by its characters, setting and plot is what must be focused on. It is the message a reader is

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able to interpret on behalf of only what the text offers on its own. How do we extract the message or criticism given in the text? Thomas R. Flynn offers a distinction of five features which existentialism deals with in his work Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction. These are one’s existence and essence, the perception of time, humanism and the search for one’s identity, the freedom of reflecting on your own choices and the importance of ethical considerations. The concept of apathy will be examined under these aspects in order to extract the criticism of the human existence these works incorporate. As Camus is an existentialist, it is not unlikely that his work The Stranger deals with these features. But apathy does not only appear in literary works of existentialists. It is a character 74

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trait and therefore has an influence on the existence of the human being as such. The criticism evoked by introducing apathy in literature is thereby always a criticism of the human being and his existence. These categories of existentialism do not only show the criticism of an existentialistic work, but, more crucially, one must say that every work dealing with the lack of emotion of a character necessarily deals with the existence of this human being and thereby with existentialism. Analysing these literary works under these five aspects, which Flynn describes, enables us to extract the message or criticism of the text with regard to the human being and its lack of emotion. By this, not only the message of the particular text, but the overall message evoked by introducing an unemotional character is examined. Thus, the four types of unemotional characters will be examined under these five aspects to examine the relation between an apathetic individual and existentialistic features41.

12.1 Existence precedes essence The first aspect Flynn brings up is that the existence precedes essence. “What we are” (p.8, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction) is a product of what we have done/ our past actions. In the time of our existence we make certain choices which evidently lead to our essence (what we are). Fate does not exist in the sense that our choices are predestined. We are responsible for the choices we make. On the one hand, in The Stranger it is Meursault’s choice to go outside

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and check after the Arabs. It is his choice to shoot when he is irritated by the sun and moreover, his choice to shoot another three times. This is what triggers his imprisoning. He becomes an outlaw and prisoner due to the fact that he does certain things/ acts in a certain way. On the other hand, emotion affects these free choices everyone has. This is also the case for Meursault. Therefore, also his lack of emotion affects his choices. If Meursault had felt fear at the beach, he would not have returned. If Meursault had felt pity for Raymond’s girlfriend, he had not written the

41 Neither Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? nor Boyhood or Endgame can serve as examples here because existentialistic questions always aim at the single character. We therefore must examine the four unemotional characters which were identified previously.

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letter. All of his choices seem to be predestined in so far that he does not have the possibility to see his misdeeds. Apathy in literature becomes an indication for the upcoming downfall of the protagonist in The Stranger because his actions are predetermined by the incapability of feeling empathy. His unawareness of emotions becomes his flaw. Moreover, it becomes a foreshadowing in the sense that his inner emotional death mirrors his upcoming physical death. Also Hamlet has been identified as tragic hero and also his choices were not entirely free. His emotions were formed after the circumstances. But in contrast to Meursault, Hamlet, in the given interpretation, controls his emotions by reason. Even when the circumstances require him to take action, he can reflect on what he does. Hamlet has the capability of empathy and therefore the capability of reflecting more intensively on right and wrong, but emotions do not blind his sight as they are controlled, repressed and rational. The only authority which Hamlet is directed by is his religious belief. Were it not for his religion, Hamlet would have committed suicide and would have killed Claudius earlier in the story. But is it Hamlet’s free will to believe? Regarding the time in which this play takes place it is unlikely to have doubts about the belief in god and the afterlife. The protagonist of Fight Club is not affected by fate or destiny either. But his choices are not entirely free because his other personality takes over and acts without the protagonist knowing. What he is in the end is not a result of his own choices but influenced by his alter ego. But more crucial

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than the choices the protagonist makes in particular is the conception of the choices a stereotypical human makes. In Fight Club the essence appears to be the same for everyone as everyone lives in the routine of jobs, in the routine of furniture and so on. Heroes are not made anymore because everything is a copy. One’s essence is not formed by the choices one makes. The apathy of life shown in Fight Club leaves society only with one choice: going under in the mass or breaking the apathy as the protagonist does. Also Grenouille chooses to be a murderer to allay his hunger for scent. Furthermore, he feels emotional concerning scent. Grenouille’s motivation to take action is scent and therefore his motivation can trigger emotions. 76

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But just as his sense of smell triggers actions, it also limits his actions because Grenouille is thereby incapable of assimilating to society. If he would not have the craving to smell he would never choose to murder. What becomes clear in all of these conceptions is that everybody has the choice to change something. But what limit the individual choices are the capabilities of the individual person. Meursault is not capable of feeling empathy and therefore lacks the capability of noticing his bad deeds. Hamlet is limited because of his fear of the afterlife. All of his actions can be interpreted as serving the purpose of the afterlife. The concept of apathy is therefore one of many features, which limit the human being’s ability to judge what the morally right action might be. Moreover, one possible interpretation of a text’s message might be that emotions should not be banned from our ratio. Emotions are essential to judge and furthermore essential to take the correct action. In conclusion, it is clear that the existence precedes the essence, but what limits our existence is expressed in many different features. The lack of emotion is one of these limitations as within the presented unemotional characters. However, Hamlet’s limitation is his religious belief. Here, apathy is only the result of his limitation.

12.2 Concept of time The second aspect Flynn elaborates on is that time is of the essence. As

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time defines a human being, Flynn says, “lived time” (p.8, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction) is what must be analysed. Lived time is measured in the sense of “not yet”, “already” and “present” (p.8, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction) and describes the sense of time of an individual. Meursault thinks about time when he is in prison. He says that his mother wanted to start a new love in the elder-care facility because she could thereby live again. Age, as he says, does not matter because one can always start life anew42. Moreover, Meursault himself realizes that his time is over, but that it does not make a difference because he was happy the way he lived, as it has been said. He does not have a reason to live his life 42

“Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again.”, p.122, The Stranger

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from the beginning and therefore accepts his death. He is content with the decisions he has made. The lack of emotion can also affect the character’s perception of a felt time and thereby also the time impression for the reader. Emotions of a character can make a described event seem to last for a long while or last only a short while by describing this event either as unpleasant or as pleasant. The emotion of the character does not only support a certain message as a thesis of qualitative time as Meursault’s thesis that everyone can start his time anew at any point of life. Emotions of a character even more significantly can have an effect on the reader’s time impression. The concept of time is also something heavily affecting Hamlet as Hamlet is concerned about his afterlife. He wants to end his time. Thereby the short time of earthly life is contrasted to the eternity of the purgatory and afterlife. Hamlet’s time on earth is devalued by the importance he gives the afterlife. Tyler’s attitude is that one moment of perfection is more than you can hope for, as it was shown in the scene at the beach where he creates a shadow only for a moment. Life is a routine. Time seems endless as nothing ever changes. A moment can therefore be of great importance and an entire lifespan can mean nothing. Also in Perfume the concept of time is present. Grenouille lives in a cave for seven years. The concept of the protagonist’s felt time becomes clear in this cave. It is a time in which Grenouille is content. He lives day in and

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day out from his memories and scenarios he invents. The reader gets the impression that nothing changes in these seven years. The time flies by for the reader because only little is written about this time in the cave. Emotions change the time impression. This becomes especially interesting with regard to Grenouille who is living in a cave where most of the time is skipped and in relation to the rest of the seven years the emotional outburst at the end is examined in length. This mirrors the reader’s emotional impression. The reader is presented a short seven years in which Grenouille feels good and, in relation, a long depression after these seven years. Furthermore, all types of characters lacking emotion deal with the 78

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concept of lived time. A moment of perfection is enough for Tyler and Meursault becomes aware that independent of whether being old or young, everybody can start living anew. Hamlet’s time on earth is devalued and Grenouille spends seven years in a cave away from civilisation in his imaginary world. Lived time is the measure of life and confronts the reader with existentialistic thoughts.

12.3 Concept of humanism The third feature which is brought up is called “Humanism” (p.8, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction) and describes the pursuit for one’s identity in society. As society holds the pressures of conformism and superficiality one’s identity in society becomes especially important. It is the pursuit for individualism. Meursault as character does not assimilate to the rest of the presented society. This is already shown by the title of Camus work The Stranger. His lack of emotion is something which alerts the others. He is the stranger on the outside due to the fact that he is a stranger to emotion. He stings out because he does not shed tears at the funeral and does not believe in god. The priest cannot understand how someone cannot believe in god and demands that Meursault should make his confession and by this show some emotion. It is only after this incident in prison, when Meursault figures what he has been. He was happy, although the world is indifferent43.

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Another character harshly judged by society is Salamano, the neighbour. His relationship to his dog is very complicated. On the one hand, he beats the dog. On the other hand, he falls into a deep depression when the dog is gone. He is the exact opposite of Meursault as his emotions swing from one opposite to another. In one moment he is desperate to find the dog. Meursault suggests that the police might have the dog and that he would only need to pay a small fee to get his dog back. Then in the other moment Salamano’s emotion changes from despair to anger of having have to pay a fee for his dog. 43

“I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself […] I felt that I had been happy”, p.122-123, The Stranger

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When one thinks of a character on the search of identity, one thinks of a person in the mass of people who then realizes why he/she is different from the rest of the people. Grenouille is the best example of this search for identity. He feels as if he had no identity because he has no smell. His striving to create a perfume to prove his existence does not end when he has created a humanlike smell. He does not have an identity when he smells like the stereotypical human (he has achieved conformity) because he then goes under in the mass. Instead, he searches for the best perfume. This is what his new identity should be: an identity which would be different from the rest. Hamlet even goes through a change. In the beginning it is said that he mourns because of his dead father. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he changes and by this also his identity changes. It is no longer an emotional Hamlet but an apathetic and manipulative Hamlet due to the fact that he controls his and other’s emotion. Nonetheless, he keeps on reasoning with himself to figure whether he is doing the right thing. Therefore, also Hamlet searches for his own identity throughout the play. Also the protagonist in Fight Club searches for his identity. Chandler and Tallon note in their essay Poverty and Anarchy in Fight Club44 that the protagonist defines himself over his personal belongings calling him a “corporate slave” (p.36, You do not talk about Fight Club). His suitcase and furniture is everything he has and everything he is, is material. But did he have an identity before he lost everything? His identity was defined by

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the catalogue. The only way to find an identity of his own is, as Tyler Durden says, to give up everything. Ironically, on his search for an identity he finds more than one identity. What is already shown in Grenouille’s search is that identity is something defined in context to others. To become an individual, a differentiation to the rest of the people has to take place. You cannot have an identity without any parameters to measure with and these are only given within the comparison. The pressure of conformism is something which devaluates the particular person because he/she is only a copy. How does 44

Taken from You do not talk about Fight Club.

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apathy play into this concept? The concept of a copy of a copy presented in Fight Club confronts the reader with the ideas of conformism. Finding an identity is therefore connected to disrupting the state of apathy of life. In this regard, every character is on the pursuit of figuring who he is and finding his individuality in the apathy of life. As it has been shown, copies do not have the value and the capability of triggering emotions. Living in conformity is therefore a way of apathy. To find an identity can be a form of breaking free from apathy.

12.4 Concept of freedom Freedom and the ability to stand back to reflect on one’s deeds is the fourth aspect Thomas R. Flynn brings up. Existentialism builds on the fact that one is free. Therefore, one has not only the ability but the responsibility to reflect on one’s deeds. Morality’s roots are the freedom to reflect. Meursault’s body is not free as of the point when he is imprisoned. But what Flynn implies by freedom is not a physical freedom but a freedom of the mind. This freedom is even given when the body is imprisoned as in Meursault’s case. Moreover, his mind is free of emotions which can blind the view on things. But simultaneously he lacks the awareness of his emotions and thereby the capability to feel as someone else does. He is a very detailed observer and also reflects on his own doings, but he lacks certain judging capabilities due to the fact that he is not aware of his emotions. A character who lacks emotions sees and explains the world in

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a different way than the reader. Hamlet stands back and reflects on his deeds several times. His soliloquies do not only reflect on decisions he does in the course of the story, but even go beyond by reflecting on the existentialistic decision “to be or not to be”. Shakespeare raises philosophical questions through Hamlet, simultaneously making him very rational. Also in his famous speech Hamlet stands back from his actions and reflects. As Meursault, Hamlet is free to reflect upon himself due to the fact that his sight is not blinded by emotions. Fight Club presents a main character who is caught in the regulated modern world. He sees his furniture as the entity defining him, but at the 81

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same time his alter ego Tyler Durden sees the material possessions as the barrier preventing the protagonist from feeling and becoming an individual. One of the messages of Fight Club is that nobody is really free unless you free yourself of the material belongings that define you. As everything is regulated, the question of importance is whether also the way to think is regulated and defined due to the conformism in modern life. Grenouille is a character who is rarely shown reflecting on what he has done. Despite the fact that he is often referred to as a genius, he is mostly led by his instinct. In fact, his ratio does become visible when he realizes that he has no smell of his own. But it is not said directly that he reflects and this is only one of very few occasions when the reader is shown that Grenouille reflects at all45. The lack of emotion allows Meursault to reflect and observe intensively. And also Hamlet’s famous soliloquy shows his ratio free from any emotional draft. The unemotional Grenouille, in contrast, intensively reflects only on very few occasions. Therefore, one cannot say that being unemotional necessarily means that one’s ratio is a stronger feature. On the contrary, the only effect apathy can have is to prevent the character reflecting from an emotional – thereby irrational – tendency. In conclusion, the character can remain rational when having emotions and be irrational even when being unemotional.

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12.5 Ethical considerations “Ethical considerations are paramount” (p.8, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction) is the last feature Flynn describes when dealing with the existence of someone. He says that existentialism invites everyone to examine his personal and social life. That ethical considerations are a main theme in The Stranger, becomes clear in several passages. From the scene in which Raymond beats his girlfriend and the neighbour beats his dog to small details as for instance the Arabs who are only named by their ethnic background, ethics become 45

“It is not that I do not smell, for everything smells. It is, rather, that I cannot smell that I smell, because I have smelled myself day in day out since my birth, […]”, p.135, Perfume

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questionable. One of Camus’ messages is a social criticism. The effect on the reader is an indignation about the ethical considerations of the characters. The protagonist’s apathy strengthens this effect because the reader and the narrator have entirely different views on the scenery. In conclusion, the lack of emotion in The Stranger evokes even stronger emotions within the reader. Hamlet’s entire deeds are aimed to do the right thing. He wants to restore justice for his father. And yet, we are also presented with questionable acts of Hamlet as, for instance, stabbing the curtain only on suspicion of the right person hiding there. Is not the human life worth more than a suspicion? And is not the human life worth more than to restore justice whether or not it might be due to heroic revenge? In Fight Club ethics are dealt within in two different ways. On the one hand, the protagonist is upset when his friend Bob dies in one of the attempts. He cares for losses. On the other hand, many people get hurt in the bombings. This is collateral damage the protagonist and his recruits tolerate and even must necessarily hope for as it is another way to disrupt the apathy of life. Grenouille does not have the same ethical considerations as other humans. Not only his perception of the world, but his entire perception of good and bad functions differently. Despite the fact that he becomes a ruthless murderer when he kills the plum girl, he does not think about having murdered someone, but is afraid the smell will vanish as it has

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been shown. The only concern Grenouille has is scent. But scent is nothing morally good or bad. Attempting to take the morally right action is not necessarily something which has to do with the character’s emotion. More crucially said, being unemotional does not mean one does not have a sense for right and wrong. But as it is shown in The Stranger, apathy is a limitation of the capability of judging. Fight Club, in contrast sees apathy as the general enemy. A new morality is established by giving the enemy the face of routine and copy. Apathy does not simultaneously mean that the character

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is morally bad, but can be a trigger as in Fight Club or a limitation as in The Stranger.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy and existentialism It has been shown that when we analyse the types of unemotional characters, existentialistic features also play a role. All of the five concepts examined by Flynn can be found in these works. The reason for this is that apathy as a character trait always confronts the reader with a criticism of the character as such because the character lacks something essential to the human being. Therefore, the character’s existence – thereby existentialism – is a theme in every literary work dealing with apathy. The concepts of apathy show in relation to existentialistic features, for example, that every character has limitations. Apathy is one of them. As we identify with the character the criticism of the texts becomes clear. For example, Fight Club criticises the modern life in which nothing has a value anymore as this is the presented limitation. Moreover, it was explained that apathy also affects the time impression of the reader and furthermore, for instance, conformism was criticised when looking at the search for one’s identity. Also, the ethical considerations presented in the particular works function as criticism. But although apathy is a limitation, the character conception of being unemotional does not necessarily mean that the character is morally bad. It can also have a positive effect by enabling the

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character to reflect free of any emotional draft. However, time, the pressure of conformism and current ethical considerations function as limitations of the character as well. Apathy stands in relation to all of these features and therefore apathy itself primarily functions as a limitation.

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13. Apathy in poems – Apathy and Enthusiasm As poetry is a major part of literature, apathy must also be examined as theme or motive appearing in a poem. Herman Melville’s Poem Apathy and Enthusiasm deals with the emotions during the American civil war. It is taken from his cycle of poems named Battle-Pieces. The American civil war took place to free the slaves and it was therefore a war which originated in the suppression of people. The poem is divided into two stanzas, of which the first has 23 lines and the second 22 lines. The form and title alone already suggest that the first stanza deals with the feeling of apathy in relation to the civil war and the second deals with the feeling of enthusiasm. Therefore, as we focus on concepts of apathy, the first stanza is of primary interest. In the introduction to The Poems of Herman Melville Robillard says that the Battle-Pieces are a “log of Melville’s attempt to make sense of his feelings about war” (p.11, The Poems of Herman Melville). Taking this into account, Apathy and Enthusiasm is a poem which does not deal with its title as main theme. Not the apathy and enthusiasm as such are the theme of the poem, but particularly Melville’s emotions in relation to the civil war is. Moreover, the emotional condition of the people back at that time is a feature which is dealt with in this poem. Melville does not describe the feeling of apathy as such but the feeling of him and the people in relation towards a certain situation. Furthermore, because we analyse a poem, the

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reader has fewer words to deal with and no word is exchangeable as every word is part of a rhythm and rhyme scheme. The interpretation must necessarily go further into detail and single words must be given more purpose than in a prose text or play. The poem starts by describing the “white and dead” (p.56, The Poems of Herman Melville) winter and says there is a cry that all seems to be lost. This likely refers to a time shortly before the civil war started in December 1860. Something being white and dead expresses blankness. A white sheet of paper expresses nothing, just as a white blanket of snow does. There is no emotion and the reader is therefore confronted with a first 85

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sense of apathy. In contrast to this, the expression of everything being lost is an emotional statement – it expresses despair. Thereby, also in the stanza itself the switch between apathy and emotion appears. Another example of this constant switching is described with the “paralysis of the arm” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville). A paralysis does not only make one incapable of feeling physical pain, it is also an incapability of taking action. Apathy as not feeling and not acting (not expressing emotion) are set in contrast because the paralysis is ambiguous. The next line “In the anguish of the heart” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) although expresses the opposite as anguish is an intense feeling of pain. Also the line “And the patience under gloom” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) expresses the incapability of taking action. Although waiting for “doom” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) contrasts this previous line as it becomes a depressive and doomed patience due to expressing the worthlessness of life. If the last event to await is doomsday and there is nothing else mentioned before this doom, then there is not much for the people to hope for. In conclusion, the first stanza describes the state of apathy before the civil war. It is winter time and the depression of the people is shown shortly before the beginning of the war. The paralysis Melville mentions expresses that nothing happens and nothing can be changed. Nothing meaningful happening (for example before doomsday) expresses apathy again. It expresses the overall emotion of the people as everything loses worth and a state in which nothing can affect you emo-

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tionally anymore is created. Nonetheless, one is also confronted with depressing images in the first stanza, which contrasts this apathy. Words as “horror” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) and “doom” form this depression. It is therefore plausible to understand apathy as a state of life the people find themselves in. It is on the one hand depressing and on the other hand in a kind of paralyzed state in which nothing can affect you as there is nothing one can do/ nothing to hope for in this particular life. Another way to understand apathy here is to regard what Robillard says. As it has been said, he calls the poems a log for Melville’s emotions. The other interpretation which comes to mind would be to say that Melville 86

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expresses his own apathy towards the events. But this interpretation is insufficient as there is no meaning in writing a poem about a theme one is not affected by/ one feels apathy for. If we make the author part of his work, it is rather plausible that Melville expresses empathy for the people and thereby writes about apathy. Whereas apathy is the state of not being emotionally affected by something, enthusiasm is the exact opposite as the people are emotionally affected. As we have noted the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says that apathy is the “feeling of not being interested in or enthusiastic about anything” (p. 59, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English). Enthusiasm and apathy can therefore be seen as opposites with regard to the degree the people are emotionally affected. First and second stanzas thereby also become opposites. Moreover, the rhyme scheme of the first stanza is different to the second one. We are not only presented alternate rhymes but irregular rhyme schemes such as embracing rhymes. It also has 23 lines – an odd number of lines – in contrast to the even 22 lines of the second stanza. Apathy expresses itself not only in the content but also in the form. As the number of lines is odd and the rhyme scheme irregular, one could say that Melville did not particularly express interest in the first stanza as it is not formed as regularly as the second. On the contrary, this lack of interest is what was described as apathy and is exactly what is expressed by this irregular

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stanza. The second stanza consists entirely of alternate rhymes, which reflects the dynamic of enthusiasm. In contrast to the brokenness of the first stanza here the enthusiasm becomes clear in the form. The second stanza describes the new rising of the people and nonetheless, does not leave out the “grief” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) of war. Melville leaves the main part of this winter itself out and expresses the enthusiasm and “elation” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) when the battles go on and “Sumpter’s cannon” (p.57, The Poems of Herman Melville) can be heard. War might be the topic, but Melville expresses the collective emotional states of the people. In both stanzas the depression can be sensed aside of the apathy and enthusiasm. In the first stanza 87

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there is anguish and in the second there is grief. With regard to this, the stanzas are not, as it has been pointed out, opposites in describing the overall feeling of war – there is throughout a sense of depression – but opposites in describing emotional states in certain moments in time.

Short conclusion of the concept of apathy – Apathy and Enthusiasm Melville’s Poem deals with emotional states during the civil war. It does not, as it is also possible, deal with the feeling of apathy as such but in a certain relation. Aside of the two emotional states expressed in the title of the poem, it also deals with depression in the form of anguish and grief. The picture of war which is painted is not heroic. Furthermore, because there are only few words in a poem and these are regulated and not exchangeable, the form of a poem can become of interest. In Apathy and Enthusiasm the emotional states are mirrored not only in the content but

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also in the form in the poem.

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14. The reader’s experience / Differences between play, prose and poem In What’s Hecuba to him? Dadlez examines if and how a person can feel real emotion for a fictional character. The title is a quotation taken from the drama Hamlet, in which the prince of Denmark stages a play in the actual play to trigger an emotion of the audience. Hecuba is a figure in the play who should trigger the king’s emotions. What Hecuba evokes within the audience of Hamlet’s play can be evoked by the play Hamlet within the real audience. Several points must be listed to make a fictional story become a trigger for emotion for the viewer/ reader. Dadlez says that the reader/ viewer must find the thought of a certain state of affairs entertaining. The second aspect is that the thought must be “of a certain kind” (p.138, What’s Hecuba to him?) to be able to identify it as this state of affairs/ as this entertaining thought. Thirdly, a certain set of affairs triggers certain emotions. For instance, a dangerous and threatening set triggers fear. As last aspect Dadlez refers to the fact that a situation which should present the reader real emotions must be “the kind of event or experience that could occur or that could have occurred” (p.139, What’s Hecuba to him?). This is essential to the reader’s experience as without any emotions being triggered the literary work necessarily becomes uninteresting to the reader.

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This concept of triggering emotions by these four aspects is a concept which works for play and prose equally because it only describes the plotting. But this concept is also of importance with regard to the character conceptions. In contrast to a prose text, the characters in a play must present their roles in an appropriate way. Good actors, who make the scene seem if it could occur, trigger more emotions than bad actors. One aspect which is relevant in this context is the description of Hamlet as unemotional on the inside. Due to the fact that Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a play the interpretation of whether Hamlet is stronger lead by reason or emotion can differ from actor to actor. The task of such an actor is to play more than it is given in the drama’s text alone as for example not every 89

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emotion is described in the stage directions. Playing Hamlet emotionally is also a way to trigger more emotions within the audience due to the fact that one can identify oneself less with an unemotional character (because as it has been said the audience normally is capable of feeling emotions). The concept of apathy which was analysed in Hamlet was examined with what the drama text offers and remains nonetheless, only one of many interpretations. But as it has been said, actors are likely to play different to this interpretation. The assumptions Dadlez postulates can also refer to poems. Furthermore, if the plot is very short or only someone describes his feelings, there is a state of affairs the reader can find entertaining. In contrast, Dadaistic poems, for example, can also trigger emotions, but they do so, not because the reader necessarily imagines a state of affairs, but rather because the sound or the form seems aesthetic. Form and sound become entertaining. Not the plot, but the form then triggers an emotion. Nevertheless, there are exceptions as there are also some Dadaistic poems which have a plot and also trigger an emotion with regard to the plot. As we have already examined in the beginning, Meursault is a character who is highly reliable due to the fact that he is honest and not blinded by emotions. As shown in the example of The Turn of the Screw, emotions can blind the view on events of a character. The question of the narrator’s reliability is not asked in Hamlet because a play does not have a narrator.

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But also single characters can be unreliable. Reliability is a concept which can appear in a play and a prose text. A way to see into the character’s soul (his inner state) is the soliloquy. This is a concept which is regularly not provided within a prose text. It is also a reason why characters seem more reliable concerning the information they present. As Campbell says, Shakespeare means what he says46. Shakespearean plays are not likely to fool the viewer, be it Richard the third’s evil plans, which are introduced already at the beginning or the bishops who urge Henry the fifth to start a war, whose conversation the viewer sees in the first scene. Surely, there 46

“Shakespeare never trifled with his audience in this fashion; instead, every character in a Shakespearean play is engaged in saying exactly what Shakespeare wanted the audience to know”, p.112, Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion

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are intrigues between the characters, so that one character cannot trust the other. Nevertheless, one cannot ask if the ghost was really there or if Hamlet is unreliable as one can ask this question of reliability for The Turn of the Screw because the ghost is staged in the play and the audience can see it. The question of reliability is therefore naturally not as likely to occur in plays as it occurs in a prose text. It is possible to ask for the narrator’s reliability in poems as there is a narrator, but in poems which try to describe an emotional state such as Apathy and Enthusiasm such a question becomes implausible. The narrator tries to describe a feature and therefore tries to directly transmit his feelings in this poem. Describing other feelings than he has, as it has been said, would not be plausible. The narrative is something only provided within a prose text. Therefore, apathy in the narrative does not appear in plays because there is no narrative. Regarding the narrative of The Stranger Fletcher notes in his chapter about Camus’s manipulation of the reader from Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger that Camus has changed the tense from the at that time traditional “passé simple (preterite)” tense to “passé composé (perfect)” (p.67 Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger). This should make the reader have more sympathy for Meursault and, as Fletcher notes, this method works. In a play this method of making the audience sympathize with the character is not provided as there is no narrator. Not always do poems have a character the plot can follow. Therefore, the topic of apathy is what is

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described directly. In the few lines provided only few elements can be discussed. As we are given characters in a play and prose text, we can examine the types of unemotional characters. Apathy is mostly a character trait and can appear in single cases as narrative or setting. But a poem dealing with apathy describes the phenomenon itself. As it has been shown in Melville’s Apathy and Enthusiasm, the main theme can be a different one such as the civil war, but the reader can nonetheless be confronted with a certain emotion. In this particular case the reader was confronted with apathy.

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Short conclusion of the reader’s experience and differences between play, prose and poem Apathy in a play is far more unlikely to identify as the actors try to project their emotions to the audience. Moreover, there is no narration and therefore the only facts we learn about the characters is the way they play. It is therefore hard to examine their inner emotion, unless the viewer is confronted with soliloquies. There is no narrator providing background information. We therefore also cannot find apathy in the narration of a play. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify apathy within the characters as we have done with Hamlet. A prose text has more abilities in forming a character and providing the reader with background information. It does not depend on actors. Narration plays a role when examining apathy, not only as apathy can appear in the narration, but because unemotional characters can be narrators as well. This again, can have an effect on the reader’s impression of the events because the reader is only given the perspective of, for example, an unemotional character. Reliability plays a role in both forms of presentation, play and prose, as we need to identify the character’s inner feelings. Apathy in the kind of poem we have examined does not question reliability as it is intended to describe a certain feature such as an emotion. The aim of a poem is therefore different to the aim of prose and drama texts. Whereas play and prose create a plot and conceptualize several characters who interact with each other, a poem focuses on one single feature.

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Apathy in a poem can therefore be something we cannot find within a character, narration or setting. It rather describes the feature of apathy itself. Surely, there are poems presenting a comprehensive plot and several characters, but these poems then have the same effect as a prose text.

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15. Final conclusion In this discourse the theme of apathy in literature has been examined. Four majorly different literary works in which this theme appears have been analysed in order to define the different concepts of apathy as character trait. We have defined the emotion unaware character, the emotion controlling character, the character striving to express own emotions and the character who feels emotion only in relation to one certain entity/ feature. Moreover, it has been shown that, different to the real phenomenon of alexithymia, a character in a literary work needs a motivation driving his actions. The possible concept of an unemotional motivation (comparable to a hunger) has been examined with regard to Perfume showing that a motivation is not necessarily bound to emotion. Furthermore, we have noted that apathy often functions as flaw. It is a character trait which functions in a negative way as the character cannot assimilate to society or lacks the capability of empathy, for instance. Also emotion and ratio have played a role as they are often seen as counterparts. But it has been shown that the ratio and emotion of a character can, but do not necessarily have to affect each other. Especially, the hypothesis that an unemotional character is necessarily morally bad has been proven wrong, but it is likely that an unemotional character lacks the capability of judging certain situations correctly due to his lack and therefore makes the wrong decisions. Furthermore, we have looked at the

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capability of smelling in Perfume, which functions as motive to indicate that someone feels or lacks emotions. But apathy can also be seen as a concept to describe modern life as in Fight Club. We have referred to this concept as apathy of life, which explains that everything is a series of copies and routines and therefore, life lacks the capability of emotionally affecting a character. Hereby, it was shown that endless copies and routines lead to apathy. Aside of the apathy of life, which functions as external concept of apathy as it does not only define one particular apathetic character but modern life as such, we have also identified apathy as social phenomenon. This other external concept describes apathy as something not only one character inhabits 93

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but an entire society. We have therefore looked at dystopias and utopias and noted that highly advanced societies are often presented as rather unemotional concerning matters which would cause emotions in our society. As the apathy of life has confronted the reader with a criticism of life as such, apathy as a social phenomenon has confronted the reader simultaneously with social criticism. Furthermore, within this chapter about Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the difference between empathy and the emotion for oneself was noted. There can be a lack of either which and therefore apathy itself can also be understood in two different ways. We have then left the field of apathy as character trait and external concept and looked at the phenomenon of apathy in, for example, the narration. Here the figure of the narrator is of crucial importance as apathy is something bound to a person. Also if we know nothing about the narrator, the abstract figure is a concept where we can locate the origin of possible emotions. Therefore, also the narration itself can be apathetic. Regarding the setting, we have analysed whether we can speak of a lack of emotion when the scenery is apocalyptic and grey. When the setting does not evoke emotions it was defined as apathetic. An alternative concept is shown by the personalized settings such as Joyce’ Dubliners. In the first conception of lack of emotion in the setting, apathy functions as passive entity because nothing in the setting causes an emotion. In the second conception, the setting is active and does not show any emotions. Narra-

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tion and setting, both, can therefore be apathetic. Moreover, the effect on the reader was analysed as literature not only functions on the level of the plot but also beyond the plot. It has been looked at the theme of existentialism and it has been explained why every concept of apathy as character trait deals with existentialism. Here we have examined the features existence precedes essence, time perception, humanism, freedom and ethical considerations. This proved the assumption that texts always transmit a message such as a criticism and that texts dealing with apathy always deal with existentialistic features. One crucial aspect apathy tackles is the limitations of a person and thereby the fictive character. How everyone forms his existence, how he/ she spends the 94

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time, if everyone is free in his decisions are all features that lead to the question what limits the individual. Apathy can be one of these limits. But also the pressure of conformism or the capability of judging correctly can be limitations and are connected to apathy. At last, we have analysed Herman Melville’s Apathy and Enthusiasm and examined the differences between plays, prose texts and poems. Crucial was that the poem not only contains the possibility of dealing with apathy in the content, but can express apathy also in the form. Also a poem can directly describe a certain feature, such as the emotional state of apathy, whereas the prose and drama texts conceptualize characters and plot to describe this feature. A poem can therefore more directly refer to the phenomenon of apathy. In conclusion, apathy in literature can appear as character trait, external phenomenon or even in the narrative or setting. It always deals with existentialistic questions as apathy is a lack of emotion / a lack of something defining the existence of humanity. To express apathy the authors have different possibilities such as provided by a prose text, play or a poem. Apathy functions differently in literature than in reality. The greatest difference is that a character needs a motivation because without motivation there is no plot. Furthermore, it can function as tragic flaw setting it in relation to several dramatic works and foreshadowing the fall of the character. Emotion and ratio are often contrasted, but they do not neces-

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sarily stand in contrast, as an unemotional character does not necessarily have to be morally bad. As it has been analysed, apathy can therefore appear in several different forms, but it always refers to the human being as such and always deals with the human existence.

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16. References Adorno, Theodor W.: Noten zur Literatur (Versuch, das Endspiel zu verstehen), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1974 (=Gesammelte Schriften Band II) Beckett, Samuel: The Complete Dramatic Works (Endgame), London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2006 Bennett, Andrew/ Royle, Nicholas: An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2004 (=Third edition) Bloom, Harold (ed.): Bloom’s Guides: The Stranger, New York: Bloom’s Literary Criticism, 2008 Booker, M. Keith/ Thomas, Anne-Marie: The Science Fiction Handbook, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009 Callenbach, Ernst: Ecotopia, London: Pluto Press Limited, 1978 Campbell, Lily Bess: Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes: Slaves of Passion, NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1930 Camus, Albert: The Stranger, New York: Vintage International, 1988

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Coetzee, J.M.: Boyhood, New York: Penguin Books, 1997 Dadlez, E. M.: What’s Hecuba to Him? Fictional Events and Actual Emotions, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997 Dick, Philip K.: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, London: Orion Books, 1968 Flynn, Thomas R.: Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006 96

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Gelfert, Hans-Dieter: Die Tragödie Theorie und Geschichte, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1995 Hornby, A S: Oxford advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999 Joyce, James: Dubliners, New York: Bantam Classic, 1990 Melville, Herman: The Poems of Herman Melville, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1976 More, Thomas: Utopia, London: Penguin books, 2009 Palahniuk, Chuck: Fight Club, London: Vintage, 1996 Schreiner, Olive: The Story of an African Farm, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992 Schuchardt, Mercer (ed.): You do not talk about Fight Club: I am Jack’s com-

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pletely unauthorized Essay Collection, Dallas: BenBella Books, 2008 Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, The Arden Shakespeare: London, 2006 Shakespeare, William: Romeo and Juliet, The Arden Shakespeare: London, 1980 Shakespeare, William: The Tragedy of King Richard III, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000 Süskind, Patrick: Perfume: New York: Vintage International, 1986 Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels, Penguin Books: London, 2001 97

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Wood, Jeff/ Wood, Lynn: York Notes: Hamlet, York Press: London, 1988 DVD sources: Manos, Jr., James: Dexter, Paramount: Hollywood, 2009 Wimmer, Kurt: Equilibrium, Highlight: Pratteln, 2002 Internet sources:

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apathy (14.06.2011)

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